Care Leavers

Darren Paffey Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sally Jameson]

I completely agree. Period poverty can often be overlooked when thinking about the whole system, but for young women in care and leaving care who cannot access those products, it can be debilitating to their ability to access all the other services that we are talking about.

One care leaver in Doncaster said:

“Even though I’m not homeless now and I’m safe and secure, it worries me that that will be the next step. It has happened before and it could happen again”.

Another said:

“I don’t think anyone who hasn’t experienced homelessness could understand how scared I was.”

Many in temporary hotel accommodation and still under corporate parentship have to face the choice between affording food or washing their clothes. One said:

“The government are my corporate parents, and they don’t act like it. Would a parent allow a child to go a week without washing their clothes? Would a reasonable parent allow their child to be homeless or not eat?”

The answer to that is no.

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful point in this debate, which she has thankfully secured. Last week, a group of Southampton care leavers came to Parliament, and raised housing and accommodation as one of the most urgent issues they want us to tackle. I have heard her welcome, as I do, innovations like Staying Put and Staying Close, but supported lodgings are another family-based option for care leavers where the young person gets not only a place to live but the practical help and relational support that she is using those young people’s voices to talk about so powerfully. The early evidence is positive, but does she agree that with too many care leavers living in substandard accommodation and without that support, initiatives such as Home for Good’s supported lodgings are also worth Government attention, particularly in National Care Leavers Month?

[Sally Jameson]

I agree; I will come later in my speech to a couple of local examples of supported lodgings, which, if applied nationwide, would have a transformative effect on the support that care leavers receive.

These young people often do not have the benefit of family support to help them find accommodation, or with rent and security deposits. Because of that, they are incredibly vulnerable not just to homelessness but to a whole raft of predators who see an opportunity to exploit them. Will the Minister work across Government Departments to increase the setting up home allowance, give priority to care leavers on housing lists in authorities where they have resided for over six months, reform universal credit so that care leavers are entitled to the over-25 weighting, and commit to work with the Department for Transport and regional mayors who have powers in the area to give free bus travel to care leavers up to the age of 25? While I am at it with the asks, can we also include free prescriptions for care leavers? In the context of wider Government spending on the population, the numbers are small, but I think everyone in the Chamber—that includes the Minister—knows that doing those things would make a huge difference to the most vulnerable group in our society, including the young people I have quoted and those on the minds of hon. Members in the Chamber.

There are other areas in which care leavers are often disadvantaged; I have seen them myself. When I worked as a prison officer, I was a single point of contact for care leavers in my jail. I learned that, shockingly, it is estimated that 29% of the prison population are care leavers, and they also make up over 50% of the youth estate. Young care leavers are also 10 times more likely to receive an immediate custodial sentence than young people who have not been in care. As a Government, and indeed as a Parliament, we cannot rest while that remains a reality for such a vulnerable group. Will the Minister work with the Prisons Minister in the other place to develop a national care leavers in custody policy, ensuring that support for young people—wherever they move to—is partnership based?

I will take a little time to pay tribute to an organisation in my constituency that has been mentioned previously. Doncaster Housing for Young People, which I am a patron of, provides tailored housing support in the form of supported lodgings with host families as well as floating support to help sustain tenancies. The organisation has shared stories of those who have had to leave foster places when they turn 18. One young woman in that position shared how she was not ready emotionally or financially to live independently, but, thanks to Doncaster housing for Young People, she moved into supported lodgings where she could build life skills, continue her studies and focus on her wellbeing.