Vulnerable Children

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving us the opportunity to highlight these shocking figures. I hope by doing so that we can support the Children’s Commissioner in her determination to track and address child vulnerability in all its forms.

This report is, indeed, shocking in the sheer numbers it identifies, but it is shocking that these figures are often only estimates. So when we are told that more than half a million children are so vulnerable that the state has to step in and provide direct care, intervention or support, 800,000 children aged five to 17 suffer mental health disorders, 119,000 children are homeless or living in insecure or unstable housing, or that nearly 12,000 children are living with an adult in drug treatment, we know that the actual numbers of children living vulnerable or high-risk lives could be even greater.

My concern and profound dismay at these figures echo what is felt by everyone who has already spoken. I want to focus on two of the 32 categories of vulnerability outlined in the report. I mentioned the 119,000 children who are homeless, or living in insecure or unstable housing. For children to thrive from their earliest years, they need a secure home environment. I should declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation. We know that families in persistent poverty are often struggling with high living costs. Often the only option available to them is low-quality and insecure housing. Pressure on local authority housing lists means that families are stuck in temporary accommodation, often unsuitable for children, and tensions rise over housing allocations.

We can do something about this. We know that the right housing and the right support enables vulnerable families to break chaotic patterns of living and gain the benefits of settled accommodation in the longer term. When this happens across communities it has a multiplier effect—creating safer neighbourhoods, boosting social capital and reducing demands on acute health and care services. The case for investing in affordable housing is overwhelming. Can the Minister tell us what progress is being made on meeting the targets for increasing our affordable housing stock, and how will the Government ensure that these homes will meet the needs of families on waiting lists?

I also want to highlight the 800,000 children who are suffering mental health difficulties, as many other noble Lords have done. We know that childhood and the teenage years are when patterns are set for the future. A child with good mental health is more likely to develop healthy relationships, to do well at school, and to grow up to be able to take on adult responsibilities and fulfil their potential. So for these vulnerable children, early intervention is crucial. Yet recent government policies have made such intervention much harder to achieve: funding for the early intervention grant has been cut by almost £500 million since 2013, and it is projected to drop by a further £183 million by 2020. Central government funding for local authorities to spend on children’s services fell by £2.4 billion between 2010-11 and 2015-16, while a four-year freeze on support for children under universal credit is expected to reduce the value of key children’s benefits by 12% by the end of the decade. Councils are facing a £2 billion funding gap for children’s services by 2020, while demand continues to grow. Every day last year saw 90 new children entering care and 500 child protection investigations. Can the Minister give any assurance that this funding gap will be addressed in the forthcoming local government finance settlement?

While I wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s consultation on children and young people’s mental health provision, particularly its focus on earlier intervention and prevention—it is long overdue—I ask the Minister whether he thinks its proposals go far enough. Aiming to have new mental health support teams linked to schools and colleges in,

“a fifth to a quarter of the country”,

five years from now seems a very modest ambition, given the scale of the problem. We need to be able to provide support to children, young people and their families when they start to struggle, not 18 months after they are referred for treatment. That is how we will avoid the costly and intense suffering that entrenched mental illness can cause.

I am haunted by the invisible children not captured in these statistics because they haven’t been reported to services, or because of gaps in available data. I hope that this report does indeed help us to count more accurately and to arrive at a system which better identifies the vulnerable child. I echo my noble friend’s plea for an urgent cross-departmental response championed at the highest level of government, so we can offer those vulnerable children the help and support that they need.