Children in Need

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I had better write to my noble friend on the definition of “children in need” as it is quite long and I do not want to take up noble Lords’ time. However, it should apply to all children equally.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to go back to the answer that he gave on local authority funding? He made the assertion that it was clear that local authorities were making this issue a priority as they were spending more money on it. That may or may not be true, but what is important is how many children they are having to spend the money on. Can he tell the House what the increase was in numbers of children in care or needing local authority support over that period?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness raises a very good point. The number of children in need during that period remained fairly constant. We are doing a great deal of work reforming social care to try to ensure that the money is better spent.