Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(3 days, 17 hours ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Watson, having attached my name to all the amendments in this group that include extending Staying Put support for young people up to the age of 25. The noble Lord has already made the case very well, so I will not repeat all the stats and the recommendations that we had from the MacAlister report et cetera, but it is worth reflecting on how hard it is today for young people to be independent at the age of 21. The Office for National Statistics report last year showed that, across our society, the average age at which a child moves out of their family home is 24. Surely the state should also be providing the kind of care that children are getting in families.
I also have a genuine question that I have not been able to establish the answer to. These amendments and the Government’s plans cover both children in foster care and those in institutional arrangements. My understanding is that about 40% of 17 year-olds are staying in unregulated or independent accommodation, and it would appear that at the moment they are falling through the cracks and not being covered by either these amendments or what is happening here, so I would like to ask the Minister whether that is indeed the case and whether the Government have plans to act on that.
It is perhaps worth setting out the kind of story of what is happening now, which I doubt anyone in this Chamber would disagree is unacceptable. Last year the Big Issue reported on the case of a young man called Duncan, who was in care with a foster family that he had been with since age 11. He came home from college one day and found that all his bags had been packed up. It was a week after he turned 18. The foster carers were happy for him to stay, but social services simply said that was not an option and could not happen, and packed his bags up. Think about how utterly damaging that would be. Duncan was then put into supported accommodation. At 3 am the next morning, someone was knocking on his door looking for somebody else. There was drug dealing happening all around him. He had a bottle flung in his face by someone who was trying to throw it to someone else in that supported accommodation. That is what the state, as a corporate parent, is doing to a child at the age of 18. There are some places where some people are able to stay, but surely that should be the absolute standard provision. We need the parity in the Staying Close and Staying Put schemes, which is what these amendments would achieve.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I rise very briefly to lend my support to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, regarding extending the Staying Put scheme to the age of 25. My Amendment 130 does exactly the same thing but for some reason is in the next group. I will say a few words about it when we get to the next group, but I just want to underline my support. I think it is a very important issue.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester’s Amendment 164 to introduce a national offer for child care leavers. This is strongly recommended by Barnardo’s because this amendment would end the postcode lottery of support for care leavers and help remove barriers to opportunity. Each year around 13,000 young people leave care without the support they need, and the outcomes of these young people remain much lower than those of their peers. That is why we at Barnardo’s—and I declare an interest as vice-president—believe that there should be a new minimum standard of support for care leavers: a national offer regardless of where they live. It should include measures recommended by Barnardo’s, which I hope the Government and the Minister will agree to.
“(2A) In subsection (2), after paragraph (f) insert—“(g) financial literacy and financial support.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would introduce a requirement on local authorities to publish information about the services they provide to support care leavers to develop financial literacy and to better understand their financial entitlements as part of their Local Offer for Care Leavers.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 95 and 130 in my name, and in doing so I draw attention to my interest in the register as a member of the Financial Inclusion Commission. I think the amendments in this group are very important. They look in broad terms at the support that is available to care leavers—an issue which we all understand is incredibly important. I am supportive of pretty much all the amendments in this group, in particular Amendment 99 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which is about a national offer to care leavers and how that relates to local offers. No doubt we will come back to that.
I had the privilege of attending an all-party group meeting recently where we spoke to a large number of care leavers. I think the noble Lord, Lord Watson, was there as well. I was very impressed with the presentations that these care leavers gave. One of them made the key point that they would like to see a national offer for all care leavers to ensure consistency. I asked them to send me some more details about what exactly it would entail, because this is a critical issue.
My Amendment 95 is a bit more specific. It would require local authorities to provide more clarity on the services they provide to care leavers to help them develop their financial literacy and thus access their financial entitlements. As we have heard, young people leaving care are much more likely to leave home at an earlier age than other young people and be forced to live independently, often before they are ready. That means managing bills, a tenancy and other financial responsibilities, and juggling that with education or starting employment, often without having any financial safety net to fall back on, which so many parents provide for their children. I know it is stating the obvious, but there is no bank of mum and dad for this group of youngsters to fall back on.
Too often, care leavers are not aware of the financial entitlements and supports available to them from the local authority, such as council tax discounts, higher education bursaries or, more broadly, welfare benefits. This lack of information can lead to them facing unnecessary financial hardship or falling into rent arrears or debt. We all know that, once you start falling into debt, it is a vicious cycle and so hard to get out. All of this has a huge impact on their well-being and security. Care-experienced young people often report that they feel unequipped, unprepared and unsupported to manage the financial responsibilities that come from living independently from such a young age, primarily owing to the lack of support or opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge they need on such basic things as budgeting, money management and broader financial understanding.
That is why the amendment, which would introduce a requirement on local authorities to publish information about the services they provide to support care leavers to develop their financial literacy as part of their local offer for care leavers—we can come back later to whether that should be part of a national offer—is vital and could make such a difference to their life chances. Such a change would create more transparency for care-experienced young people about the financial support available to them and would help to address one of the main challenges they face when moving into independent living.
Amendment 130, as I said in the previous group, is basically about extending Staying Put to the age of 25. We have already had that discussion; I never quite understand some of the mysteries of grouping, so quite why we are having it in a separate group as well I do not know. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, set out the case very well. I shall just add that, as we heard in some of our earlier debates, young people leaving care often face a disproportionate risk of experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. Care-experienced young people are nine times more likely to experience homelessness than other young people, and statutory homelessness rates for care leavers have increased by over 50% in the past five years, which underlines why I think extending Staying Put to the age of 25 is so important. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on the previous group, it involves a pretty small number of care leavers. The costs of doing this would be fairly modest and I hope, from what we have heard in the spending review yesterday and today, that some space is opening up. So, really, I am asking Ministers whether they will think again.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for my earlier early intervention. Noble Lords know how passionate I am about early intervention and it got the better of me.
Amendments 97 and 99 are in the name of my noble friend Lord Farmer, who cannot be here today. My support for my noble friend in his amendments is grounded in a desire, which I am sure all noble Lords share, to see high national standards of support, not just pockets of excellent practice in some local authorities. Having said that, the requirement in the Children and Social Work Act 2017 for local authorities to publish their own offer for care leavers, which this would amend, is an important one. But it needs to be built on. A higher standard at a national level would not prevent innovative and exemplary councils doing even better, but it would force any that were lagging behind to improve. I suspect that those who are dedicated to their local care leavers’ cause and are working hard on the ground would welcome high national standards, as those would help them argue successfully for the enhanced leadership and financial support required to lift their offering.
Another reason why the local offer is an important part of primary legislation is that it includes services relating to relationships—a primary need for children coming into care, while they are in care and when they exit. My noble friend Lord Farmer, the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and Lord Mackay, now sadly retired, tabled an amendment to the Children and Social Work Act 2017 that was eventually accepted by the Government, which included the important word “relationships”.
On Amendment 97, the Bill presents an important and timely opportunity to embed relationships more deeply into councils’ arrangements to support and assist care leavers in their transition to adulthood and independent living. We should do all we can to enable care leavers to maintain, strengthen and build family and social relationships. Family group decision-making provisions in the Bill need to be built on. Having gone to all the effort to bring together families and friends who are committed to a child potentially leaving their parents’ care, we cannot allow those relationships to fall through the cracks in their care pathway.
The Family Rights Group, which forged Māori-born family group conferencing into a British model over many years by working with families and children with relevant experience, has similarly refined the lifelong links model, which started as the family finding model in Orange County, California. Lifelong links ensure that children in care have a lasting support network of relatives and others who care about them. A trained co-ordinator works with the child or young person to identify and safely reconnect with important people in their lives, such as relatives they may have lost contact with, former foster carers, teachers or sports coaches. With family group decision-making becoming standard practice, many such people will, or should, have been involved in that process. Keeping these contacts going is a sensible and straightforward next step. The lifelong links approach has demonstrated significant benefits, including more positive and healthy connections in the child’s life and better mental health, instead of isolation and depression, or worse.
Knowing that they matter as an individual to people who are not the professionals paid to look after them gives a child a much better sense of identity. The practical wisdom and guidance that family and friends give often makes the care leaver far more emotionally stable, with a knock-on effect on their ability to hold down accommodation and training or education courses. This reduces the risk of homelessness and of a child trying to make their way without a goal or purpose. Without the motivation that positive relationships provide, it can be very hard to persevere. If you do not matter to anyone, it is easy to wonder what the point of bothering is.
The lifelong links model is currently available in over 40 local authorities across the UK, with 22 receiving Department for Education funding. Lifelong links is not named in this amendment, but, given all of the investment the Government have already made in evidence-building, it should be included in regulations and guidance as an offer to all children in care and care leavers.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, that was a really disappointing response to Amendment 98. We started with a response to Amendment 78 which was excellent, a continuing annual dialogue by someone who was really involved in what is going on. When we get to this amendment, I am not offered a review at all, it is just the menu: no content of what has been done, how it has been done and what the excitements and disappointments of the year have been. I very much hope that the noble Baroness, when she reviews this day and looks in general, will say, “Actually, my first answer was the better one”, and that that sort of relationship between a local authority and its duties and the public produces a much better response than just a local authority setting out what its offer is and making no comment whatever on how its performance has been, and offering no interaction to the public in general as to how that is going on. I will talk to my noble friend on the Front Bench about coming back to this on Report. It was a more general look at how local authorities should relate to their public about what has happened this year and what they hope to do next year.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. She used a word that I also thought of: it has been a very rich debate; it has been very wide ranging, with real passion, expertise and knowledge of the subject matter.
We all agree there is a strong moral imperative that we do all we possibly can to support care leavers as they make their transition into independent lives. I welcome and recognise the number of measures in the Bill that do that, but the whole tenor of this debate is that there is scope for strengthening. So many specific planks have been identified: health, housing, financial education, family relationships, et cetera. There is much to reflect on.
I was encouraged to hear that there is such a top-level, cross-government board looking at this, including Cabinet Ministers. That is really positive. Could this debate be drawn to its attention, so that it can see what we have said and the suggestions we have made? On the offer that should be available to all care leavers, it was helpful to have the distinction between some sort of national offer that is, essentially, the minimum standard that should be available everywhere and the local offer, where it is actually delivered. That will vary, but there is a set of standards below which it really should not fall. That is something we could think about further.
Rather than getting back into other issues or any disappointment about responses, I have a suggestion: would it be possible for interested Lords who have spoken in this debate to have a meeting with the Minister before Report, so that we could look together at where it is realistic to do the strengthening, which came across very strongly in this debate? On that basis, I withdraw my amendment.
“Promoting relationships for looked after childrenIn section 22(3A) of the Children Act 1989, at end insert “and a duty to promote the child’s family and social relationships in ways which are consistent with the child’s welfare.””
Baroness Tyler of Enfield
My Lords, I am afraid it is me again. I will speak to Amendments 101 and 102. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for adding his name to Amendment 101 and, of course, to my noble friend Lord Storey. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, cannot be in his place, because these amendments are both about relationships, which I know he feels passionately about.
In short, Amendment 101 is about promoting relationships with children in care. That is central to their well-being and therefore at the heart of the Bill. The amendment would strengthen the duty on local authorities to support the well-being of children in the care system by promoting the child’s family and social relationships alongside their educational achievement. Both are critical and interlinked.
We all need people to turn to in our lives for support, encouragement and love, particularly when times get tough. Research for the care inquiry by voluntary organisations concluded that the greatest failure of the care and child welfare system is that it too often breaks, rather than builds, relationships with children in and leaving care. Children often have to move to live far away from home, which means they have to change schools, leave behind family members, friends, neighbours and other important relationships. This is also relevant to Clause 11, which we will come to later, about children who have been deprived of their liberty. I will come back to that in a later grouping.
The absence of positive relationships in children’s lives increases the likelihood that they experience longer-term difficulties such as poor mental health—we have already heard about that—a tougher time at school, unemployment and homelessness. When young people leave care, their professional support network too often just disappears, and they do not have family or friends to turn to.
Charities such as the Family Rights Group have developed programmes of support to address this, such as lifelong links. I was going to talk about that, but the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, did so in an earlier group, so I am pleased to say I do not need to. The crucial point I want to make is that these relationships should not be broken in the first place and that local authorities should be supporting children in care to maintain positive relationships with those who are most important to them.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, in speaking to the amendments in this group, I recognise that there is an enormous consensus in this debate about the significance of family and social relationships for looked-after children, for children in care and for all of us. This is why we feel so strongly that these are relationships we need to protect as far as possible for the children who are looked after by the state. It must be key, as several noble Lords have said, that we are able to maintain those strong relationships.
Perhaps at this point I should give a shout-out to my two sisters, who, after my mum, are the longest relationships by far that I have had in my life. As other noble Lords have said, when the going gets tough, it is your siblings who provide you with the support necessary—if you are as lucky as I am with mine—to get through those times.
We have a responsibility to help those children whose lives have been even more difficult to be able, wherever possible, to maintain those relationships. When a child is in care, as other noble Lords have said, the local authority must allow reasonable contact with the child’s parents, if it is consistent with the child’s welfare. These amendments seek to place equal duties on local authorities to allow reasonable contact with siblings of children in care. They also seek to strengthen wider family and social relationships for looked-after children.
We very much agree that it is important for a looked-after child’s welfare to, wherever possible, have and maintain positive relationships with their parents, siblings, wider family and friends. The importance placed on these relationships is echoed at all levels of a child’s care journey and is supported through current arrangements and statutory processes. We have heard in more than one debate today about the excellent work that has been done, for example, by lifelong links, which is supported in 22 local authorities by funding from the Government, and which is operating more widely than that. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, is right that, when it comes to relationships, we need to focus on quality as much as quantity and on the sustainability of those relationships.
For local authorities, there are existing duties in the Children Act 1989 to endeavour to promote contact between looked-after children and their relatives. This includes siblings, friends and other connected people, unless it is not reasonably practical or consistent with their welfare—the Children Act is clear about that. Good social work practice would ensure that there was a strong understanding of the people who are important in a child’s life, the nature of the relationships and an ability to be able to plan for how those relationships can be sustained.
Equally, when determining an appropriate placement for a child, local authorities must, as far as reasonably practical, ensure that the child can live with their sibling, if that sibling is also looked after. The importance of this is laid out in the care planning regulations. For those involved in care planning, regulations already make it clear that arrangements to promote and maintain contact with siblings must be included in a child’s care plan. This prioritises consistency, stability and lifelong loving relationships with those who are important to children and young people.
If a child is concerned about the level of contact that they have with their sibling or other family members, they should be encouraged to speak to a trusted person about this, be that their social worker, their independent reviewing officer—who has a responsibility to ensure that the plans being made for the child or young person are appropriate, including those that involve maintaining relationships—or an advocate. Under current legislation, in extreme circumstances children in care can apply to the court for contact with any named person, which could include a sibling, and siblings can seek permission from the court to apply for a contact order. Furthermore, as I think we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Meston, the court should consider contact in making a care plan for that child.
For foster carers and, for example, staff caring for children in children’s homes, there is statutory guidance and regulations to promote positive relationships between a child and their family and friends. More broadly, a very strong theme in the Bill is our working to promote strong family networks in all areas of children’s social care—for example, through the measures on family group decision-making, which we discussed right at the beginning of Committee. That might be an appropriate way to address the issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, raised about bereaved children. The noble Baroness is right that, in those cases, it is particularly important that, at the point at which they are bereaved, children would be able to maintain contact with those who they have left in their lives.
I hope I have recognised the important arguments behind both these amendments, and that I have provided some reassurance to noble Lords that existing laws, regulations and guidance already strongly value, and have an expectation around, the importance of sibling relationships and other relationships, while ensuring children’s welfare. I suspect that this is a place where the law, regulations and standards are already in place. What we need to do is focus on the significance of this and on the good practice of social work needed to enable it to happen. Social workers around the country will be focusing on it, and I hope us having had this debate will make it more likely that it will be brought to the fore in people’s thinking. I hope, therefore, that the noble Baroness will feel reassured enough to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very empathetic response. Following her example, I guess I ought to give a shout-out to my brother. We have been through some quite difficult times together, and that is what leads to that enduring relationship.
I thank all noble Lords who participated in this debate. It has been one of those debates that shows this House at its very best, and that we can deal with issues to do with love and emotions. I am grateful for the Minister’s response. My reaction is as follows: it may well be that this is currently written into existing legislation and guidance, but I know from all the care leavers I used to speak to on a regular basis that, far too often, it simply does not have much impact on the ground—and I think this was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. One of my objectives in putting this amendment forward was to have something in the Bill that makes it absolutely obvious that sibling contact is a right. It would be really encouraging for children in care to know that it was there.
Between now and Report, it would be helpful to have further discussions about the extent to which the problem is that this is just not clear enough in law, and so we need to put something in—which, again, as was said, would not have any cost implications—or whether it is more to do with social work practice on the ground. I am a great believer in both/and, so I think we may well be returning to this on Report. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, briefly, I lend my support to Amendment 143, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, to which I have added my name. This amendment, on the need for a foster care strategy, was, if I may say so, powerfully brought to life by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and I thank him for that. The noble Lord, Lord Young, put it very well when he talked about the gap that exists, saying that we had strategies for other aspects of children’s social care but not for fostering. It is a gap that it would be useful to fill, in the same way that the amendment I brought last time suggested a strategy for neglect.
As we have heard, urgent action is needed to address the recruitment and retention crisis in foster care. Nationwide, it has been calculated that we have a shortfall of some 6,000 foster carers across the UK, with 5,000 more needed in England. Certainly, more foster carers are continuing to leave than are joining up. Various surveys have shown that the three key reasons for this have been inadequate financial remuneration, lack of support from their fostering service and a lack of respect for their role. I think that last one is really sad. I did notice in the 2024 State of the Nations’ Foster Care report that the number of foster carers who said they would recommend fostering to others has decreased. Indeed, fewer than half of foster carers said that they would recommend fostering to others who may be considering it. It is for those reasons that we need a national strategy to lay out how fostering will be more sustainable in the long term, not least to meet the needs of some of the children who the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, was talking about.
I also support Amendment 105, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, which would be an important part of raising the whole status of fostering.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, the context for my Amendments 134 and 178 is, as we have heard in this short debate, that we face a very severe shortage of foster carers. As other noble Lords have said, this Bill feels like a huge missed opportunity to try to address this problem. Honestly, I do not really understand why the Government have not chosen to do more to address it—but perhaps the amendments in this group will offer the way.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, mentioned that there is currently a shortage of 5,000 foster carers in England; that is 33 foster carers per local authority. It just does not feel like an insuperable problem to find 33 homes across the country in each local authority—though, absolutely rightly, my noble friend Lady Spielman spoke of the very high prevalence of complex needs in children who go into foster care.
This speaks to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and others about a strategy, which would also address the recommendation in the MacAlister review that we need more flexible models of fostering. As we have heard, of just over 160,000 families who expressed an interest in becoming foster carers in 2020-21, only just over 2,000 were approved—a conversion rate of 1.3%. I understand that many applicants apply to multiple agencies and so get counted twice. There may be timing issues for potential carers, and there are structural challenges, including pay and the need for training, and difficulties in the application process, as we have heard. This is the most significant area for the roughly 83,000 children in care. Over 56,000 of them are in foster care, half of them with independent agencies and half in local authority foster care. That is a very big and important number, and it feels fundamental to address it.
It sits at the heart of what we might call the children’s homes problem of cost and profits, which we will debate in subsequent groups. If we had more foster carers, the pressure would come off children’s homes, prices would adjust and we would be in a much better situation, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Bird, put so convincingly, because the wraparound of foster care—the fact that there is a family and relationships—leads to vastly better outcomes for the child. For all those reasons, this is an important group, and I hope that Amendment 143 is one that the Minister takes very seriously.
My amendments are much simpler. Amendment 134 would give more flexibility to allow young children over the age of three to share a room. My intention is that this would apply to primary-aged children, although re-reading my amendment I think that my drafting skills have come through yet again. Having talked to directors of children’s services in London and other areas with high housing costs, I know that the number of potential foster carers with several spare rooms is very limited. I am aware that some organisations in the sector see this as a safeguarding risk, but I argue that we are already trusting the foster carer to care for a very vulnerable child. Within that, we should trust their judgment about the sleeping arrangements of the children in their home. Sadly, safeguarding risks are not confined to what happens in a child’s bedroom. This amendment could potentially add several hundred more places, at little or no cost, in areas with the greatest pressure to place children locally, and would avoid children being placed very far from home—as we have heard about several times today—their roots and their communities.
This is not the only way to expand capacity. Another would be to invest in initiatives such as the Greater Manchester Room Makers scheme and roll it out more widely. It provides funding for foster carers to renovate existing rooms or build extensions to allow them to care for more children.
My Amendment 178 seeks to clarify the delegated authority that foster carers have for the children in their care. This was tabled in the other place by the honourable Member for North Herefordshire and received a positive response from the Minister. I seek further confirmation from the Minister here that the Government still intend to consult on this point. Perhaps she could update the House on the likely timeline for the consultation and for the secondary legislation to be amended.
Thinking more broadly, and returning to Amendment 143, it would help the House if the Minister could share other ideas the Government are working on to improve recruitment and retention. I spoke recently to the organisation Now Foster, which is developing “weekenders”—that might not be the right term—which offer regular weekend placements for children who might be either in kinship or foster care, giving much needed rest and space to both parties, and a consistency and stability for the child or young person that can extend beyond the age of 18. Crucially, it also gives foster carers a chance for a more modest but still substantial commitment, rather than taking in a child full time with everything that entails. This idea—again, this came up in the MacAlister review—of having different options and different models of fostering is long overdue for more work.
My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham talked about the importance of a support network for foster carers. I visited an amazing group of foster carers—some brand new and about to receive their first child, some who had been fostering for over 20 years—who are part of an employee co-operative, Capstone Foster Care, in Peasedown St John in Somerset. Again and again they spoke eloquently about the impact of that network on their ability to foster and to offer love and care to very vulnerable children.
They also talked—this ties in with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson—about the need for a really positive recruitment campaign. Most people hear about fostering only when there is a case of severe neglect or worse. But across the House we have heard examples of many noble Lords who have either been foster carers or who recognise the extraordinary and life-changing work that foster carers do. We need that message to get outside this Chamber and out to people who might consider this and see it as a respected and important profession. We need more innovation in this area to unlock the potential in our communities to provide this kind of support for children who need it, and to improve retention.
Children’s Social Care
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I very much welcome the Government’s announcement on their focus on children’s social care and on a number of reforms that have been announced. We recognise that there has been a significant rise not only in the number of children in care in recent years, but in older children and children with more complex needs. My questions to the Minister are really in an effort to make sure that we understand what His Majesty’s Government are aiming to do.
It felt, reading yesterday’s Statement and then the policy paper afterwards, a bit like an early-intervention sandwich. In her Statement, the Secretary of State rightly spoke about the importance of
“breaking the cycle of crisis intervention”
and the need for early intervention. Obviously, that was front and centre in the MacAlister review, which called for targeted early help delivered by multidisciplinary teams. In the list of actions at the end of the Government’s document, it is clear that they have longer-term plans to create teams that look very much like those when the fiscal situation allows. However, in the middle of the sandwich, in the substance of the policy document, it is less clear what the Government’s plans are in relation to early intervention.
Can the noble Baroness give the House some sense of the risk of what has already been announced, in the absence of an early intervention strategy? Can she give the House some sense of the timing? When does she expect targeted early help teams to be introduced and how will the staff be recruited? It would be interesting to have an estimate of costs. There was an estimate in the MacAlister review, but that is now somewhat out of date. Will she comment on the future of family hubs, which also play an important role in relation to early intervention?
More broadly, it would be helpful if the Minister could explain why the Government are removing the payment-by-results aspect of the Supporting Families programme. In my own professional experience prior to being in your Lordships’ House, I saw that some of the most effective multi-agency work undertaken was underpinned by a financial model that really drove a focus on outcomes for the child rather than for any particular agency, so it would be helpful to understand that decision.
I also notice that the Government are proposing to include £400 million of social care funding in the wider local government settlement. Does the noble Baroness agree that there is a risk that, if this funding is no longer ring-fenced, it will end up being used for crisis intervention rather than the early intervention which we all, across this House, recognise is so important?
As the Secretary of State set out yesterday, there are huge pressures both within and on the social care workforce. I note the Government’s plans to reduce dependency on agency staff, which is understandable, but I know that the noble Baroness also understands quite how challenging that is to achieve. Can she say anything more about the Government’s plans to retain the existing workforce and grow it? Do the Government have targets and timings to deliver on those plans?
We also really welcome the work on kinship carers, which obviously builds on the work that we started in government. As has often been said across the House, kinship carers do the most extraordinary job, often in terribly difficult and delicate circumstances. We very much look forward to seeing how the pilot of a kinship carer’s allowance works out.
We also recognise the challenges in the children’s home market, which is why we set up an advisory panel to look at that earlier this year. I wonder to what extent the Government’s announcements in this area reflect the recommendations of that panel, and whether there are plans to publish them.
The noble Baroness is aware that both the Competition and Markets Authority and the MacAlister review did not think that price capping would actually work in practice, for slightly different reasons, but both underlined that the key issue in the market is capacity. I note that the Government have announced £90 million of funding. Can she confirm that this is new funding and how many places it will fund in children’s homes? Do the Government have a plan for where those places will be?
In closing, I would like to recognise the invaluable insights that all of us who have worked in this area have received from those who have been in the care system, but also from those young people who did not get into it and were left at home, living with abuse. I hope very much that the Government will proceed in lockstep with those young people and always listen to their perspectives.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I also welcome the Government’s Statement on the reform of children’s social care. Such reform is long overdue. For far too long, children’s social care has been the Cinderella of the Cinderella that is social care, so let us hope that this bodes well for a long overdue reform of adult social care.
With almost half of children in care now living out of area, and children still being placed in unregistered accommodation—even caravans and tents sometimes, I am told—coupled with the egregious levels of profiteering by some children’s residential home providers, this clearly demonstrates a system in crisis, if not broken. I am glad the Government are taking steps to address this, particularly requiring placement providers to share their finances transparently with the Government. The whole system needs fundamental overhaul.
First, could the Minister tell me what level of profit the department will deem appropriate? If profit levels do not reduce, how quickly would the Secretary of State introduce a profit cap? For Ofsted to effectively exercise its new powers, the regulator must have the necessary capacity and expertise. Addressing profiteering and ensuring financial transparency requires a sophisticated understanding of the sometimes opaque ownership structures used by the big corporate groups behind care provision. What assurances can the Minister give me that Ofsted will have both the staff numbers, and critically, the expertise to do this work effectively?
On the sufficiency of placements, national data published last week shows that 45% of all children in care in England are now living out of area, and 22% are living far from home. What steps is the department taking to ensure accurate data about the sufficiency of places, at both a national and a local level, and what assessment has it made of the impact of its proposed measures in preventing children in care being moved out of area?
I strongly welcome the renewed focus on early intervention and family care, keeping children out of care in the first place, and I look forward to hearing more about this in the coming period.
As we have already heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, kinship carers are unsung heroes who often step up at a moment’s notice to look after family members. So, can the Minister say whether the Government will now commit to moving beyond the limited pilots that have been proposed to a universal allowance for kinship carers, on a par with those received by foster carers?
No young person should leave care having had support just stripped away when they turn 18, so I welcome the steps announced to end that care cliff edge so that young people are better supported into adulthood. The Government’s plans to legislate for Staying Close to support all care leavers up to 25 is a good first step. However, do the Government plan to extend the Staying Put scheme to the age of 25, as well as Staying Close, to provide more continuity of care for children whose final placement is in foster care?
Care-experienced children and young people have a much harder start in life and experience much worse outcomes. Liberal Democrats have called for care experience to be made a protected characteristic under the Equality Act to strengthen the rights of people who have been or are in care. Can the Minister say whether the Government are considering this proposal?
I welcome the commitment in the paper to a single unique identifier, which I have long advocated for, along with others in this Chamber. I look forward to seeing the details, and I very much hope that the NHS number will be used, as suggested in the policy paper.
Finally, it is crucial that the detail behind these reforms and the funding underpinning them backs up the ambition that has been set out. Can the Minister say when the overall package of funding will be announced, and can she clarify how the £400 million funding for local government referred to in the Statement relates to the £600 million for social care that was announced in the Budget, which was not broken down between adult and social care?
I finish with a couple of wider questions. Can the Minister say when the Government plan to publish the children’s well-being Bill? What is the overall timescale for introducing the measures that have just been announced? Given the scale of recruitment and retention problems in social care, with many jobs vacant, what will the Minister do to tackle the workforce crisis in the sector to reduce the dependency on agency staff?
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for their positive response to yesterday’s Statement and their positive response to dealing with an area that I think all those who have chosen to attend for this Statement today understand is absolutely crucial for the most vulnerable children and families in our country. I will do my very best to respond to all the questions, and where I fail, I will certainly follow that up in writing.
As the noble Baronesses recognised, this Statement sets out how to rebalance the children’s social care system to improve outcomes for children in care, care leavers and families. It is guided by four key principles: that children should remain with their families and be safely diverted from entering the care system; that where children cannot remain at home and it is in their best interests, we should support most children to live with kinship carers or in fostering families rather than in residential care; that we take action to fix the broken care market and tackle profiteering in the placement market; and that we invest in the key enablers which underpin the children’s social care system, including the workforce, better data and information sharing, and to scale and spread evidence-based and proven approaches.
I will address some of the specific points that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, raised. On this point about keeping people as close as possible to their families, she asked about family hubs. I can say that family hubs were not specifically mentioned in the Statement because it covered the legislative proposals that the Government are bringing forward. However, we are absolutely clear that they do very good work in helping families to access vital services to improve the health, education and well-being of children, young people and their families. The 75 most deprived local authorities will in fact receive around £300 million from both the DfE and the Department of Health and Social Care up to 2025, to set up family hubs with integrated Start for Life services. Knowing that they improve families’ lives and children’s outcomes, and reduce costly crisis intervention later, we will continue to support that type of initiative. This exactly plays to the point about supporting children and their families at the earliest possible stage before those relationships break down.
On the point about payment by results for the Supporting Families funding, Supporting Families has achieved some very important results for children and their families. However, as is often the case with funding streams such as this, it has also become very bureaucratic. In keeping with the Government’s commitment to resetting its relationship with local government and working in partnership with them to deliver reform for vulnerable children and families, we will be simplifying the funding mechanisms for local authorities as much as possible, reducing the requirement for the payment by results recording and returns. That does not mean, however, that we will not be maintaining the focus on the outcomes for families, as the noble Baroness rightly said. We will continue to expect quarterly returns on the number of successful family outcomes that areas are achieving, so that we can continue to assess the overall impact of the programme. Because we have simplified the processes, we can also say that all local authorities will receive all their remaining available funding for 2024-25 as a one-off payment on 12 December, to enable them to continue making progress.
Both noble Baronesses asked about the £400 million funding. This is £400 million that will go into the overall local government grant, in keeping with the arguments that I made about reducing ring-fencing where possible. The £600 million is additional from this Budget for social care. It will be allocated, and more detail will be provided, at the time of the local government settlement for that.
On the point about agency staff, the noble Baroness is right. We do not believe that it would be possible to have a system with no agency social workers. Lots of agency social workers do very important work. However, when 17.8 % of all local authority child and family social workers are agency workers, that feels like too few permanent staff and too many agency workers. Yes, that does mean that we must work harder to train and retain our children’s social care workforce. That is why we will also be working to ensure that the workforce has the right environment to thrive in, personally and professionally. Legislative measures alone are not the answer, although we will introduce in the Bill a regulation-making power to govern the use of agency workers in local authorities’ child social care. In October, we published a set of online resources, developed by Research in Practice, to support local authorities to improve working conditions, workload, health and well-being and organisational culture. We are also working, through the national workload action group, to identify the unnecessary drivers of workload and to help to provide solutions, so that social workers can spend more time working with children and families rather than carrying out paperwork.
I am glad to hear the welcome of both noble Baronesses for the progress that we are making on kinship care. The £40 million that was announced just in advance of the Budget, and which it was part of, is to enable us to trial the use of the allowance for kinship carers in 10 areas. It would be appropriate to learn from that as quickly as possible, yes, but to learn from that trialling in order to work out how effectively to develop that and other forms of support for kinship care.
On the issue of the placement market, both noble Baronesses argued that a range of methods need to be used to increase the number of placements, in order to get away from the current situation. We do not have sufficient high-quality placements for children, particularly those with the most extreme needs, and we are seeing enormous increases in funding to pay for that. The £90 million we have announced will go alongside encouraging local authorities, charities and ethical investors to enter the market. We will work with the MHCLG on planning and ensure that Ofsted can fast-track the right sort of provision. I am sure I will get to some of the other questions the noble Baronesses asked when I respond to other noble Lords, and if I do not, I will write to them.
Unregistered Children’s Homes: Fees
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps, if any, they are taking to lower fees being charged by unregistered children’s homes.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, profiteering from vulnerable children in care is unacceptable. Children must live in safe, high-quality homes, which is why it is a legal requirement for children’s homes to register with Ofsted. This means that they can be inspected and children are safe, and that where there are failings, they are addressed. We will strengthen regulation through the children’s well-being Bill so that children’s social care delivers high-quality outcomes for looked-after children at a sustainable cost to the taxpayer.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
I thank the Minister for her Answer, but there remains a real concern about the number of children still living in unregistered children’s homes. Is the Minister aware of the recent BBC investigation, which highlighted that some unregistered children’s homes are charging up to a staggering £20,000 a week and still failing to keep very vulnerable children safe, which a senior family court judge has described as breathtaking? What immediate steps are the Government taking to address this issue? Does the Minister also agree that the key aim of addressing excessive costs, which I fully support, should not lead to the eradication of children’s homes, and that we need a mix of high-quality, registered provision to meet all children’s needs?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that some extraordinary amounts of money are being charged by placement providers. The Local Government Association found, for example, that in 2022-23, 91% of respondent councils paid at least £10,000 per week or more for one placement, compared to 23% in 2018-19. That is why, as the noble Baroness says, we need to ensure that a range of safe, regulated, high-quality placements are available for children, and to ensure that where there is excessive profit, we take action against that as well.
Independent Review of Children’s Social Care
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Given the noble Lord’s enormously distinguished career in this area and his contribution to ensuring that children are kept safe, I think the whole House will listen to what he has to say. He is right that the objective of the MacAlister review and this Government is to bring timely support to children and families that need help; evidence shows that preventing problems from escalating leads to better outcomes. We will build on the work of the Families First for Children pathfinders, which, unfortunately, are only in 10 places at the moment, to think about how we can develop that early help. The noble Lord also makes the very important point about all our responsibility, as corporate parents, to ensure that children who have to come into the care system get the same very best care from us that we would expect for our own children. That is certainly something that this Government will pursue and think about how we can embed that even more broadly in the public sector and in our communities.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I will pursue the point made so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Laming. Last week, the children’s care coalition of charities highlighted that, for the first time, more is being spent on residential care placements than on early intervention. Can the Minister say how the Government plan to rebalance that spending, given the current tight fiscal climate, including in the upcoming Budget and spending review, to ensure that families, children and young people get the support they need before reaching crisis point?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes a very important point. The Local Government Association also found that, whereas in 2022-23 91% of councils that responded spent at least £10,000 per week or more for one placement, in 2018-19 that had only been 23%. Not only does the position in the placement market disadvantage children in not being able to find those loving and stable placements that they need, but it is also an enormous burden to local government. That is why, as she said, we have to build on, for example, the £45 million invested in the Families First for Children pathfinders this year to help families get support earlier. Where there is clear profiteering from some providers in the placement market—evidence of this has been discovered—we need to take action and we will do so.
Schools: Mental Health and Poor Attendance
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the links between rising levels of mental health issues among school age children and poor school attendance; and what steps they are planning to take to address the situation.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, mental ill-health and inadequate access to support are real challenges facing children today and have a detrimental impact on their school attendance. This is despite the excellent work done by education and health staff across the country. Poor mental health and low attendance are mutually reinforcing barriers to opportunity and learning. That is why we are committed to providing access to a specialist mental health professional in every school and developing new young futures hubs.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer. As she has acknowledged, the evidence increasingly shows a clear link between school absences and poor mental health. There is also a growing recognition of the gap in mental health support available to children who need a greater level of support than is currently available in school mental health teams but do not require specialist treatment from CAMHS, and that this gap is best filled, as happens in Scotland and Wales, by school counsellors and suitably qualified practitioners. She talked about providing specialist mental health support for every school, mirroring my recent Private Member’s Bill, and I very much welcome that. Could she confirm when these proposals will be brought forward and whether they will include primary as well as secondary schools?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, I know that the noble Baroness has done much work in this area and, obviously, has had a Private Member’s Bill on it. Access to mental health professionals will be for all schools, secondary and primary. We are working with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that we get that model right and that we can, as she emphasises, provide that early support to alleviate the need for more acute mental health provision for young people, I hope.
King’s Speech
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, as this debate draws to an end, I warmly welcome the newly appointed Ministers to their important new roles. I thank the outgoing Ministers, and commend the two excellent maiden speeches that we have heard today. I particularly commend my noble friend Lady Jolly for her excellent valedictory speech and pay tribute to her outstanding contribution as a Government Whip during the coalition and as a party spokesperson, and in particular the work she does for people with learning disabilities. She will be sorely missed on these Benches and beyond.
Like so many others today, I welcome many of the measures in the gracious Speech and look forward to scrutinising legislation when it comes to this House. There are areas where the measures do not go far or fast enough, and there are some key omissions that I will highlight. My noble friends Lord Storey, Lord Sharkey, Lord Addington and Lady Garden have all talked about education with great expertise. I will focus on health.
I welcome the commitment in the gracious Speech to improve the NHS, specifically the urgent need to reduce waiting times, focus on prevention and improve mental health provision. I wholeheartedly agree that there is an urgent need for a more preventive model of care, with investment moved upstream; it is crucial if we are to lower waiting times, improve access and reduce health inequalities.
The answer to overcrowded hospitals is not simply more hospitals: the health and care system must be radically refocused to put primary and community care at its core if it is to be effective and sustainable. In my view, this should include new patient-centric integrated services, such as walk-in clinics, diagnostic centres and polyclinics, to improve speedy access, give patients more control, and take the weight off overburdened GPs and hospitals. We also need to use existing hospitals more efficiently. We know that valuable NHS equipment and operating theatres too often stand idle in the evenings and at weekends. Will the Minister say what plans the Government have to address this and whether they include bringing in independent clinical teams from outside the NHS?
A more radical shift to a preventive model of care was one of the key findings of the integrated care Select Committee, so expertly chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, on which I had the privilege to sit. I hope Ministers will take heed of that excellent report and what it recommended. We really do not want to end up reinventing the wheel.
Like my noble friend Lady Walmsley, perhaps my biggest disappointment is the silence on social care. We all know that the current problems in accessing healthcare will never be resolved until social care is fundamentally reformed. There has been talk recently of a royal commission, but no mention of it in the gracious Speech. I wonder whether a royal commission, however well-intentioned, is what we need; I worry that it will simply kick the issue into the long grass. In the last decade, we have seen countless reports, reviews and commissions into social care, but, to the huge frustration of those in the sector and beyond, nothing ever happens. In short, the political will simply evaporates. We know what the problems are and, broadly, we know what needs to happen; we just need to start moving on what will inevitably be a gradual path.
The Government have pledged to establish a fair pay agreement in the adult social care sector and improve working conditions. I welcome that, given that there are over 130,000 vacancies in adult social care. It is certainly to be hoped that measures in the planned employment rights Bill to increase pay and scrap exploitative zero-hours contracts will help to attract and retain more staff, but that will happen only if they are accompanied by commensurate local government funding increases. Will the Government commit to a social care workforce plan to complement the NHS workforce plan?
I turn now to the critical issue of unpaid carers, echoing the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley. Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay, published in May, included a commitment to review the implementation of the Carer’s Leave Act 2023 and examine all the benefits of introducing paid carer’s leave. However, the background briefing to the employment rights Bill, published on Wednesday, contained no mention of this. There is a real opportunity here for the Government to move quickly to deliver this review and introduce enabling provisions to ensure that a new right to paid carer’s leave is introduced as part of the Bill. What specific plans are in place to deliver that review and to introduce these enabling provisions?
I greatly welcome the commitment to ensure that mental health is given the same attention and focus as physical health and to modernise the Mental Health Act. To say it is grossly overdue is an understatement, and I understand the scepticism of some in the sector who have heard all these promises many times before, only for nothing to happen. For too long the Mental Health Act has failed people who require mental health care. Racial inequalities in the use of detention, high levels of restraint and the removal of patient autonomy are just some of the problems of the current Act. Introducing a new mental health Bill to reform that Act provides a crucial opportunity to enhance patients’ rights, to strengthen safeguards for those admitted to mental health hospitals, particularly for children placed in inappropriate settings and on adult wards, and to rebalance the system to one that prioritises and promotes the patient’s voice and choice in their treatment.
It is welcome to see the tobacco and vapes Bill reintroduced. We should not forget that, of those people suffering from mental health conditions, more than 40% smoke, compared to just over 12% of the general population.
I declare an interest here as a member of the Financial Inclusion Commission, which has not had a mention yet today. Too many people experiencing mental health problems also suffer from financial and digital exclusion. That is why I was so delighted that the Liberal Democrat manifesto included a commitment to introduce a national financial inclusion strategy, including measures such as promoting access to cash, particularly in remote areas, and supporting banking hubs and vulnerable consumers. Could the Minister say what plans the Government have to introduce a comprehensive financial inclusion strategy?
I turn now to children’s mental health. As we have debated so often before, those accepted into child and adolescent mental health services—CAMHS, as we know it—are often left waiting for many months, if not years, for treatment, during which time their mental health often deteriorates. It is estimated that only around a third of children with a probable mental health problem are able to access treatment, showing how far away from the parity of esteem with physical health we really are. I look forward to hearing the Government’s plans in this area.
I welcome the children’s well-being Bill, particularly the pledge to introduce free breakfast clubs in all primary schools, but I would also like to see an equal focus on promoting children’s mental health at primary school age. The gracious Speech contained a pledge to improve mental health provision for young people, which I very much support, and the Labour Party manifesto committed to providing specialist mental health support for every school, mirroring my recent Private Member’s Bill. Could the Minister confirm whether this will include primary schools, as my recent Private Member’s Bill did? Sadly, it narrowly missed its Third Reading, because the election was called. Leaving it until secondary school is simply too late. Could the Minister say when we can expect to see action on introducing open-access mental health hubs for children and young people in every community?
Finally, I turn to child poverty. We have had some powerful interventions here. I was proud that the Liberal Democrat manifesto contained a pledge to abolish the iniquitous two-child benefit cap. I wish there had been more focus on this and on other elements of our ambitious anti-poverty strategy during the campaign. We have heard the figures today of those in child poverty and the fact that it is going up and that many of those families suffering have had at least one parent in work. We welcome the Prime Minister’s very recent announcement of a child poverty task force, but it is quite clear that the two-child benefit cap is the principal policy contributing to this alarming rise. Could the Minister set out the timetable for the task force reporting and say how quickly we can expect to see action taken on the two-child limit?