Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

If the Minister and his department want this to have some bite and for people to really take notice of it, he will strike out “have regard to” at every point in the Bill. We now know what happens to children who are in care and what their life chances are. If we really want to change that, we have to put some obligations on. We will come in the second group to some of the other people who ought to be linked with those obligations but we must be very clear what we expect a corporate parent to do. We do not say to normal parents, “Would you like to have regard to whether to take your child to the GP?”, or ask them whether they might have regard to whether they might support their child in school. Parents know what their responsibilities are and we must be very clear what corporate parents’ responsibilities are—so my plea to the Minister is to get rid of “have regard to” and to support particularly the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, briefly and telegraphically, I particularly note proposed subsection (1)(h) in Amendment 1 from my noble friend Lady Howe of Idlicote, which would create an obligation to keep siblings together. I pay tribute to Delma Hughes, who grew up in care and who, when she went into care, was separated from her five siblings. She has set up a charity called Siblings Together and set up summer workshops in the Young Vic, for example. When I saw her on Sunday, she was taking a group of siblings off to swim together. So often when young people come into care they get separated from their siblings, which can be a great loss to them. I pay tribute to Delma Hughes for her work and her advocacy with government over many years and I welcome the amendment. It obviously depends upon professional judgment, which is why the aspects of the Bill dealing with social work development are so important.

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[Lord Nash]

With respect to the lawyers present—including myself from many years ago—I will not comment on the last point. We are trying to set out principles and not put local authorities under any more duties than necessary or into any kind of straitjacket. But the noble Baroness makes a point about a number of duties and we will go back and look at this in more detail.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank the noble Lord for answering my point about siblings. I look forward to the debate on the amendments. I also thank him for his clear reply to the important point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top. He said that the care plan process must involve parents. However, the experience so often is that parents do not get the help they need with their addictions or mental health support. So I hope that the noble Baroness will consider bringing back an amendment on this on Report. In the interim, I look forward to having discussions with colleagues to get their advice on whether anything more can be done to ensure parents get the support they need.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords will agree that this has been an interesting and wide-ranging debate. It has opened up many other areas that we will need to address as the Bill progresses.

We are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, for the way in which he has dealt with the comments made. Clearly, he will take into account many of the points made and will consider whether changes can be made in the right direction to satisfy us so that we all know the right way forward.

I gather that there is probably something substantially wrong with my amendment which might cause problems at a later stage. Certainly, at the moment, I do not wish to press it. I will look at it again and, unless other Members of the Committee wish to press the amendment at this stage, I suggest that we withdraw it and think about the next stage. We should think about the other amendments we shall be going on to in Committee, but we should also consider how we might reframe them to meet the problems we may still have on Report.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendments 3, 31A, 36 and 37 in this group. They would all have the effect of extending duties to government departments, going beyond local authorities, in recognition of the role they play in the lives of looked-after children and care leavers. I should like to advance this by creating a comprehensive and tangible national offer for care leavers to lay the strongest foundation for their transition to adulthood.

With all the uncertainty in this country, in Europe and in the world at this time, there may be a silver lining; it may help us to gain some insight into the uncertainties experienced by these children. Their Chancellor and Prime Minister are either absent or unable to function. They have no idea from one day to the next where they are going to be. So when we feel uncertain about the leadership of our parties in this country and of our future, or if we fear that we have alienated our friends and neighbours, it may give us some understanding of what it feels like for a three, five or 10 year-old who is in a family in which the parents simply do not function; there is no leadership or guidance and tomorrow they may be we know not where. Perhaps we know to some extent the fear and anxiety that these children feel. If we do not intervene effectively by giving them guidance, leadership and a clear structure to their lives, they may go through their whole lives experiencing fear on a daily basis, unable to form relationships and function in the world. To some degree we are experiencing a lack of structure at the moment.

I welcome the commitment of the Government to putting for the first time corporate parenting principles into law. I see it as an important step in making sure that children’s best interests, life chances and future prospects are put at the core of decision-making processes. The Minister will be aware, however, that the corporate parenting role does not stop with local authorities, because all levels of government are corporate parents to children in the care system. My first amendment seeks to extend the scope of corporate parenting responsibilities to include central government departments. I heard what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said about corporate parenting responsibilities, and perhaps it is unfortunate that I am using these terms. But I go back to what he said earlier in the debate today. What I am seeking, and I think what we all want, is to extend the duties more widely than just to local authorities. That will ensure that we all work together to get the best outcomes for these children.

Welcome steps were taken in the 2013 cross-departmental Care Leaver Strategy, which brought together for the first time government departments to consider the impact of their policies on care leavers. For instance, care leavers in the employment system are now flagged up to workers in jobcentres and employment agencies so that the staff know that they are dealing with a care leaver and need to exercise particular care. I pay tribute to the Government for that. The amendment provides us with an opportunity to further advance that progress.

My noble friend Lord Ramsbotham spoke of the need to work across different agencies. I would like very briefly to quote from my noble friend Lord Laming’s recent report on preventing the criminalisation of young people in care, In Care, Out of Trouble. He takes forward the theme of how we must work better together to improve outcomes. For instance, he says:

“The work must be driven by strong and determined leadership at national and local levels, taking a strategic multi-agency approach to protecting children in care against criminalisation”.

His first recommendation is that,

“commissioning and disseminating a cross-departmental concordat on protecting looked after children”,

is vital. So he very much embraces the principle of ensuring that all departments work together to protect and promote the welfare of these children.

Noble Lords engaged in this debate will be aware that more than 10,000 children aged over 16 left the care of a local authority last year to begin the difficult transition into adulthood. Not only are these young people beginning this journey but they are also finding themselves independent and often without the support network afforded by a family. This rapid accession into independence, coupled with a lack of a close support network, means that many care leavers are at particular risk of debt and financial hardship—two things that no parent would wish on their child.

In subsequent groupings my noble friend Lady Howarth of Breckland and I will discuss a national offer so that these children get better support as they move forward from care and face fewer financial worries. In the meantime, I commend these amendments to your Lordships and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 5 in this group and lend my support to Amendments 4 and 31, which are in very similar territory. The purpose of my amendment is simple and has already been alluded to—the new corporate parenting principles should apply also to commissioners of physical and mental health services for children in care and care leavers.

As we have already heard, Clause 1 introduces a set of principles to which all local authorities must “have regard” when carrying out their responsibilities in relation to children in care and care leavers. Like other noble Lords today, I very much welcome the introduction of these principles. They should help to ensure that, when local authorities make decisions about services and what is best for children, they have the children’s best interests—their health and well-being, their wishes, feelings and aspirations—at the forefront of their mind.

It was argued very strongly at Second Reading and has already been mentioned today that parents will always seek the best for their children and that the state should be no different. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that most parents would move heaven and earth to ensure that their child is either in good health or receiving the treatment they need if they are physically ill or in mental distress. I believe that the corporate parenting principles should be extended to health commissioners, reflecting the vital role that these bodies play in shaping the lives and outcomes of children in care and care leavers. As we know, these children are much more likely than their peers to have poor physical, mental and emotional health. To give one example, children in care in England are four times more likely than the average child to have an emotional or mental health problem. That is an issue we will return to in a subsequent group.

As the Education Select Committee identified in its recent inquiry, health services are often not organised in a way that makes it easy for children in care to access. There is already evidence of targeted support being decommissioned because of financial pressures. Child and adolescent mental health services tend to be reluctant to assess or treat a young person until they believe that they are stable in their placement and that there is little risk of them being moved to another area. It is a similar problem, I have heard, with GP registrations. It very much affects access to the services that these children need. It is a vicious circle. Placement instability leads to poor access to services, higher levels of unmet need and poorer outcomes. We simply have to do something to break this vicious cycle. That is the purpose of this amendment.

I will finish by saying that I have listened very carefully, both at Second Reading and, indeed, to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, today about the need to ensure that the local authority responsibility as corporate parent is sharp, clear and undiluted, and is not made too complicated. I will not mind at all being told that I do not have the wording of my amendment right or that it is not in the right place and should be in a different part of the Bill; I just want these principles to apply to health commissioners, without in any way diluting the core, central responsibility and accountability of local authorities.

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[Lord Warner]

I am sorry but I want to pursue this. The clause is clearly—

[The Earl of Listowel]

I think that the Minister was referring to Section 10 of the Children Act 1989, not to a clause in this Bill. I hope that that is helpful.

[Lord Warner]

That certainly was not what he said.

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support Amendments 14 and 28A, with particular reference to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and the regularisation of immigration status. I look forward to reading the EU sub-committee’s report. I want to refer back to a report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I was then a member, on the human rights of unaccompanied migrant children and young people in the UK. We took a lot of evidence about the position of unaccompanied migrant children and young people, including questions around legal provisions—this was before the LASPO provisions were fully effective. We said that the picture painted of the legal landscape in this area was deeply troubling, and we called for an immediate assessment of the availability and quality of legal aid and legal representation for unaccompanied migrant children in England and Wales. I suspect it is going to emerge that the position is even more troubling today than it was then.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, I spent many hours wrestling with the Immigration Bill. One of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, and myself, following representation from Amnesty and the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens, was the position of an estimated 120,000 children in the UK subject to immigration control and without leave to remain, over half of whom were born in this country and many of whom were in the care of a local authority. We drew attention to the evidence of the failure of local authorities to support these children in making a timely application to regularise their immigration status, or to register as British citizens.

As the Refugee Children’s Consortium, to whose important work in this area I pay tribute, pointed out, a child without a way to regularise their immigration status in local authority care becomes a young person without support at 18. As some of us pointed out then, you do not magically become an independent adult when you turn 18; when the clock passes midnight, you are not suddenly able to look after yourself. We do not expect any other children to be able to do so, so why should we expect it of the most vulnerable children in care—unaccompanied asylum-seeking children?

Finally, a recent briefing from the UNHCR and UNICEF sets out what the UK can do to ensure respect for the best interests of unaccompanied and separated children. One of the recommendations is on the need to strengthen procedural safeguards for assessing and determining a child’s best interests, including by ensuring high-quality legal representation and advice for unaccompanied and separated children. I hope that the Government will take that on board because it is not too much to ask. They should consider what a difference it could make to an extremely vulnerable group of young people.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, the report In Care, Out of Trouble: How the life chances of children in care can be transformed by protecting them from unnecessary involvement in the criminal justice system, an independent review chaired by my noble friend Lord Laming and sponsored by the Prison Reform Trust, was published about a month ago. Can the Minister tell us how the report has been received and when it is likely that a response to the recommendations made in it will be forthcoming?

I too share the concerns about the status of young people in the immigration system as they leave care. I would like to emphasise the point that has been made on all sides, most recently by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that these young people need advice early on when they enter care about their immigration status so that they can make early applications in order that when they leave care, it has been sorted out. Often they do not get that support and everything is up in the air for them. This is such an important point.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I too support Amendments 14 and 28A, but I want to speak mainly in support of Amendment 9 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. I do so from the background of having been the architect of youth offending teams and as a former chairman of the Youth Justice Board. One of the most depressing things about the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, is that we continue to find that the same number of children, if not more, who have been looked after and have left care are in the criminal justice system. My responsibilities as chairman of the Youth Justice Board related to the under-18s. If noble Lords go to Feltham, as I did recently, or look at young offender institutions for 18 to 21 year-olds, they will still see very disproportionately represented young people who have been in care. It is worth giving this special consideration, without distorting and overcomplicating Clause 1 too much; the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in Amendment 9.

These children are a special case. Many of us have tried to ensure that they get a better deal so that they do not go into the criminal justice system. Progress has been made among the under-18s in diverting them away from it, but there is still a long way to go. That is particularly the case among young people who have been in care and then are taken into custody. It is the case that when they leave custody, a depressing number of these young people quickly get on to the escalator of reoffending and they are back where they started. Many of the sentences are short. I should say that I am not advocating longer sentences for people in these circumstances, but they are usually not long enough to enable those running the custodial institution to change the behaviour of these young people and provide them with support. Typically, when they come out of custody, whether they are under 18 years of age or aged 18 to 21, for many there is no one in their lives to support them, they have accommodation problems and they do not have any employment. They then go back into the kind of environment which led them to get into the criminal justice system in the first place. Many of them offend outside the area where they were in care, so we have some problems about whether those local authorities always pick up the background of these children.

It is very difficult in today’s world for a youth offending team working with a young offender in one area to get the host local authority, if I might put it that way, to take responsibility for that young person who had been in their care. We have to look very seriously at Amendment 9 from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. It gives focus to the importance of trying to do our best to stop these young people who have been in care, or who have left care, going through the revolving door of the criminal justice system—particularly those who end up in custody and then fail again when they leave custody.

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The second point I want to make is slightly different and is about asylum-seeking children and children who find themselves in this country at 18 and then discover that they have an immigration status that they did not know they had. Why can youngsters get to that point? The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was right about that. I do not know why in this day and age a school does not discover that a child has an uncertain immigration status. Schools are doing so well at the moment. The Minister knows that. Surely we can tackle this issue. I would like to be sure that there is a plan from when a child enters the system right through and that we do not wait until the day the child finds themselves cast out. We must have a plan on that day for what is going to happen to them with the proper legal support and advice. I cannot think why we should take these children in at all if we cannot promise that we can give them hope for a future that does not mean being returned to the terror that they have just left. We have to make those decisions sooner rather than later. If there is proper planning I am not against children being returned. In the Vietnamese programme children were returned successfully because the planning was done properly. It is when we do not have plans that problems arise. I met a young man recently who found himself with no status on the day of going to college and he did not go.

[The Earl of Listowel]

It may interest the noble Baroness to know that one of my first jobs with children was working in an intermediate treatment centre. The teacher was a woman. The social worker was a man. They worked very well in partnership. The youngest boy was eight—a Traveller boy. The oldest was 15, going on to do a mechanics course. It certainly seemed to me a humane and effective way of working and I hope that we can go back to using more of that kind of approach.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for these amendments —Amendment 9 regarding the unnecessary criminalisation of looked-after children and Amendments 14 and 28 concerning access to legal advice and representation for looked-after children. The first of the noble Lord’s amendments seeks to make it a requirement, linked to the principles, for local authorities and their relevant partners to prevent the unnecessary criminalisation of looked-after children. I understand why the amendment has been proposed and strongly agree that we must avoid children in care being unnecessarily criminalised. Local authorities should adopt a restorative approach wherever possible so that police intervention is viewed not as a first but a last resort. As noble Lords have said, children’s life chances can be badly affected by unnecessary involvement with the criminal justice system.

Existing guidance requires local authorities to have clear strategies in place to help protect and divert children from the justice system. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, in some areas the police, local authorities and children’s homes have worked very well together to ensure that restorative approaches are used wherever possible.

The framework of corporate parenting principles in the Bill already makes clear what it means for a local authority as a whole to act as a good parent. Good parents will not hesitate to safeguard their children from the risks of offending or involve the police unnecessarily. However, it is an important issue and we intend to cover it in the new statutory guidance that will underpin the principles. For instance, the guidance will stress the importance of co-operation and joint working between local authorities, the police, children’s homes and foster carers, and it will emphasise the importance of keeping a sense of proportion in relation to challenging behaviour.

The noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Warner, rightly raised a number of the very important issues highlighted by the Laming report. They will also be aware that Sir Martin Narey is currently carrying out a review of residential care which also looks at this issue in detail. In addition we have Charlie Taylor’s review of youth justice. All three of these reports and their findings will help and support us in developing guidance in this area and will give us a clear picture of other actions that we may need to take.

The noble Lord and the noble Baroness also proposed inserting a new corporate parenting principle to promote access to legal advice and representation for looked-after children. I agree that it is vital that we hear the voice of the child being cared for rather than simply treating them as part of an administrative process. Under the existing arrangements there are a number of adults who children in care can talk with and turn to. They include court-appointed guardians, their social worker and a named independent reviewing officer who will follow their case long term and can also advise the court.

Under the existing requirements, local authorities are required to make looked-after children aware of potential advocacy support to make representations or complaints, most significantly the advocacy services clause set out in Section 26A of the Children Act 1989, from which various pieces of guidance flow. An additional legislative clause is unlikely to impact further on either children’s or local authorities’ awareness. The associated statutory guidance will make clear that local authorities should consider how they can best listen to and hear from looked-after children and care leavers.

A number of noble Lords raised a range of issues relating to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The majority of these children will continue to receive support under the Children Act 1989 if they have a legal right to remain. Once that right is exhausted, they then get accommodation, subsistence and other social care support under the Immigration Act until they leave the UK. The Department for Education has been working closely with the Home Office to ensure that children receive appropriate support. However, in the light of the detailed points raised by noble Lords raised today, I would be very happy to arrange a further meeting to find out what has been happening. Given the depth of our discussions today, that would be better than me attempting to respond, not very well, to their points today.

I hope that on that basis the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Nash]

With pleasure.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before the noble Baroness withdraws her amendment, I want to say how very pleased I was to hear that Dr Peter Fonagy, director of the Anna Freud Centre, an institution with such an illustrious history in the treatment of abused children, is being appointed to run a working group looking at how mental health professionals can better work with children in care. The Minister might consider taking to Dr Fonagy, at the beginning of his research, the concern about children’s homes. In his report in the 1990s, Choosing with Care, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, highlighted the fact that best and widespread practice on the continent had psychiatrists or relevant mental health professionals working in partnership with staff in children’s homes, as much to support staff as in meeting the mental health needs of these children. Only about half of our children’s homes have a connection with mental health professionals in that way.

This issue is so important. Although there has been progress in terms of the qualifications of staff in children’s homes, still we have a long way to go. They need the best mental health professionals supporting them. I would be most grateful if the Minister could flag that up to Dr Fonagy.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that very complete response. This has been a varied group of amendments and the debate has raised issues that I know the Government will take on board.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, raised a very interesting issue about what goes into the Bill. I agree with her, of course. It seems to me that some of the issues raised today would be very easy to slot into the Bill. However, we need more discourse, perhaps with outside agencies, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, suggested, to condense other issues that might be reinforced in the Bill.

I am very glad to hear that there will be a review of mental health and looked-after children. The three issues that came out very strongly for me were mental health, prevention and assessment, the last of which was brought up by the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler, Lady Walmsley and Lady Benjamin.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, for his support. We have talked about this before. To respond very quickly to him, I think character education does link with personal, social and health education. I do not care what you call it but it is important, although I will not accept the name “grit” education, because it is very American and it sounds like a film. As far as I am concerned, that is out, but we can talk about that some other time. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, and others mentioned CAMHS. CAMHS has borne the brunt of funding cuts since 2010 and cannot be relied on to do all the work that we expect of it.

I return to the very interesting remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, on kinship care. I suggest to the Minister that this may be an area where we would benefit from a discussion with the Kinship Care Alliance because those of us who are old enough to have been here for a while—there are one or two familiar faces present—will remember that over the last 10 years, or possibly longer, the issue of kinship care has come up in three or four Bills but we have never resolved it. We have never resolved what kinship carers need or how they should be recompensed for the service they provide. They save the state millions of pounds but they still often live in poverty with no support. I hope we can crack this issue with this Bill and achieve some sensible way forward on this.

I hope the Minister accepts that this is an important issue. My comments are linked with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said because we tried with one such Bill to have a person appointed in every local authority who would support kinship carers and the relevant children. Sometimes children cannot be happy and healthy unless their carers are happy and healthy. Many kinship carers are not happy and healthy but are struggling under tremendous financial, physical and mental burdens. That is another issue to which we may well come back, but in the meantime I thank noble Lords for their contributions and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 48 tabled in my name and to Amendments 49 and 50 in this grouping. Amendment 48 would provide a national offer for young people leaving care and would help to address the concerns that have just been raised about them entering poverty and social exclusion. It would build on what we were discussing earlier; that is, placing duties on departments in very specific ways to work to promote good outcomes for these young people. The national offer would include a council tax exemption, for which the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, will make the case shortly, as well as an entitlement to income support to reduce the risk of sanctions and help to support care leavers into work. There should be an extension of working tax credit to care leavers under the age of 25 to ensure that work always pays for them, along with an extension of the shared accommodation rate of local housing allowance, again until the age of 25.

I recognise that this is a very difficult time financially, and of course some of these proposals would have financial implications. While I am reluctant to burden the public purse still further, as the Minister and noble Lords will know, the cost of failing to intervene effectively on these young people is huge, including criminalisation and many becoming pregnant early in life. They will have young families and be struggling as it is, and yet they will have additional financial burdens and so on, although I understand that a couple of the provisions would be unnecessary for the mothers of young children. There are the knock-on costs, and of course there is the absolute misery for young people who are struggling in life and then perhaps having their own children taken away from them. I hope that noble Lords will bear that in mind.

On income support, which is covered in the first amendment, research undertaken by the Children’s Society has found that care leavers are three times more likely to have sanctions applied to them than other adults of working age, with 4,000 sanctions applied to care leavers between 2013 and 2015. Where these sanctions were challenged, although care leavers are less likely to challenge them, some 60% were overturned. This implies that the sanctions are being misapplied. Fewer than 16% of care leavers challenge benefits sanctions as opposed to 23% of the general population. Care leavers are particularly vulnerable to the effects of benefits sanctions, which currently can last for between four and 13 weeks for a low-level infraction such as being late for an appointment at a jobcentre. One young person told the Children’s Society that she was sanctioned in the lead-up to Christmas. She said:

“Don’t know why … it caused a lot of issues … I wasn’t able to sustain myself”.

Allowing care leavers to claim income support would ease their burden. Income support is still a sanctioned benefit, for groups who should be preparing for work. Currently care leavers are not eligible to receive income support by virtue of their status of having been in care. Extending the entitlement to be on income support to care leavers would be a recognition by central government of the need to be more supportive to this particularly vulnerable group during their search for gainful employment. This amendment is very much focused on reducing the impact of sanctions on care leavers, rather than providing them with a higher level of income.

The second part of the amendment applies to working tax credit. Care leavers currently cannot claim working tax credit under the age of 25 unless they have a child or disability. This amendment seeks to extend eligibility to claim working tax credit to all care leavers in full-time work of more than 30 hours a week in recognition of their risk of falling into debt as a result of being liable for household expenses such as rent, energy bills and basics, where many young people would not cover these costs in full if living with family members. It would also recognise the particular need to provide clear incentives to this group to move into, and stay in, work.

I understand that there may be some rationale behind restricting access to working tax credits until a person reaches 25. Younger workers on low wages are likely to be living with their families and not have the full financial liability of running a household. Those over 25 may be less able to fall back on their families for support. However, care leavers take on the full financial burden of adult life as soon as they begin independent living, yet are not able to claim the national living wage. Regulations by the Children’s Society show that they are £42 a week worse off than an equivalent older non-care leaver. Extending working tax credits to care leavers under 25 would be a significant step forward in ensuring that work paid for care leavers, and would secure the surest financial footing for them at the beginning of their adult lives.

The final part of the amendment is on the shared accommodation rate. That rate sets maximum local housing allowance entitlements for most single people under the age of 35 in line with the reasonable rent in their local area for a room in shared accommodation. Currently care leavers are exempt from this until the age of 22. The amendment seeks to extend this exemption up to the age of 25. Until the age of 22, care leavers receive the single bedroom rate, providing them with sufficient support to rent a single-bedroom flat rather than a room in shared accommodation. This should be extended until the age of 25.

With the current situation, care leavers receive a significant cut in their local housing allowance at the age of 23 as they transition from single-bedroom rates to the shared-accommodation rate. At this point, leavers may find that they fall into rent arrears, leaving their home to live in shared accommodation, which may put them at risk. Those in foster care leaving care under staying put arrangements of the age of 22 may find themselves transitioning immediately into shared accommodation. These are serious problems that the amendments would address, so I hope the Minister will consider a favourable response.

I turn to the next two amendments. I have spoken for far too long so I will not say anything more, but I strongly support them and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I thank the noble Earl. I thought briefly that he was going to make my speech for me, and I was having a doubtful moment.

These are probing amendments, looking at how other agencies could benefit the long-term care of young people. These are crucial areas. It is difficult to see this from the way in which the groupings list is put together, but these amendments are linked to Amendment 38, which I know we will come to but I need to make a comment about it before moving on because it is all about financial knowledge and education. The Government can be given credit for the general progress that has been made in financial education, but it is not enough, certainly not for children in the care system.

Schools have a mandate to include financial education lessons as part of mathematics and citizenship at key stages 3 and 4. Academies, free schools and independent schools have no obligation to teach it, although many do, but many schools do not have it high on the curriculum so children could miss out on this essential life skill. At a time of taking on more financial responsibility and having to make long-term financial decisions, only 28% of 17 to 18 year-olds received lessons on money management before joining university or the world of work. How much more difficult is it for the population of young people who are moving on from care who have very little backing from their own families for this? I am really probing this amendment because currently a paradox exists between a local authority’s duty of care to care leavers and its enforcement methods on council tax arrears. This paradox does not level with the corporate parenting principles set out in Clause 1 as it exposes care leavers to the risk of debt and potential court summons, does not promote their well-being, act in their best interests or seek to find the best outcomes for them.

Links between debt and poor emotional well-being are becoming increasingly clear and links between poor mental health and emotional well-being and future life chances have been well established. We are very grateful to the Children’s Society which has done a great deal of work on this and has shown that debt can influence a young person’s willingness to start university education due to the worry about the debt they may further accrue. One care leaver living independently told the Children’s Society that council tax arrears severely impacted on her well-being. She said:

“I was late making a payment and they sent me a reminder letter and they said if they had to send me any more reminder letters then I have to go to court and they stopped my instalments. I got really worried and really panicky because I didn’t understand, I didn’t want to go to court”.

Another speaking with reference to the reactive chasing debts and emergency support as opposed to proactive financial education and council tax exemption focus of local authorities said:

“They’re setting you up to fail”.

This is not the approach that any parent should take, especially a corporate parent. There are good areas of practice and I think the Minister knows about Cheshire East Council which has set the precedent in recognising its role as a corporate parent by introducing a full exemption from council tax for care leavers until the age of 25. This will cost about £17,000 per year, including out-of-area care leavers. Cheshire East anticipates this will reduce the number of emergency payments it will be required to pay to care leavers who are in financial crisis, as well as further reducing the dependency of these young people on other services. This is to be welcomed. However, we must take the opportunity presented to us with this amendment to make sure that all care leavers receive the full exemption from council tax until they are 25; otherwise we are back with a postcode lottery again, with some children getting it and others not.

It would be good if the Government could show leadership on this issue and make sure that as a corporate parent central government departments work with local authorities to extend the best practice as seen in Cheshire East across the country. The Minister may see this as an issue for local areas but the precedent is a national government one as the authority applies blanket exemptions to certain groups such as students through tax legislation. Does the Minister agree that as a corporate parent the Government have a duty to support care leavers in their transition into adulthood, and that council tax exemption is a tangible and meaningful way of doing this?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Howarth, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, for their amendments in this group, which focus on improving the life chances of children in care and care leavers and helping them to avoid poverty and debt. I share the concerns raised by noble Lords and can confirm that reducing poverty and debt will be one of the key themes in our forthcoming Care Leavers Strategy, which we plan to publish shortly.

Amendment 26, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, seeks to add a new corporate parenting principle to Clause 1 requiring local authorities to promote early intervention. I agree with the noble Lords that we should support measures that enable professionals to identify and intervene in cases where children are at risk of poor outcomes. We have launched a number of initiatives to encourage early intervention and have backed this up with increased funding, with government spending on early years and child care rising from £5 billion in 2015-16 to over £6 billion by 2019-20. Early intervention and support should benefit all children, not only looked-after children or those on the edge of care. Our plans for the early years demonstrate our clear commitment to universal services such as free childcare, alongside targeted support for the most vulnerable.

Amendment 27, tabled by the noble Baroness, also seeks to add an additional corporate parenting principle to Clause 1 which would require local authorities to have regard to the need to protect children in care and care leavers from poverty and destitution. We know that care leavers often face challenges with debt. We have heard from them that they worry about how they will be able to pay their rent and that they often feel they lack the relevant budgeting skills to be able to manage their money effectively. We have heard several examples of that today.

I recognise the importance of the issues raised by the noble Baroness. Care leavers already receive support to help them to manage their finances but all young people should receive financial education. I am pleased to confirm that we will include further information in the guidance that we plan to publish under Clause 1 on how, by working within the spirit of the corporate parenting principles, local authorities can help care leavers to avoid poverty and debt. We should cover in the local offers the importance of financial education and we will cover this in our guidance.

During the last Parliament we introduced junior ISAs and encouraged all local authorities to increase the leaving care grant, which care leavers can use to furnish their first home, to £2,000 or more, but we need to back that up with educating them on how to manage those monies. We also provide financial support to enable care leavers to access and participate in education, to which I referred earlier.

Turning to the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, I understand that its effect would be to extend the category of persons eligible for income support to all care leavers up to the age of 25 and to extend the exemption to the local housing allowance shared accommodation rate from 22 to 25, when their entitlement to housing benefit is assessed. I have consulted with honourable and noble Members elsewhere in government about the noble Earl’s amendment to relax entitlement conditions for receipt of working tax credit for care leavers working at least 30 hours per week. It has been a condition of entitlement to the working tax credit since its introduction in April 2003 but, other than for individuals, including care leavers, who are responsible for a child or who are disabled, a person claiming working tax credit must be aged 25 or over and work at least 30 hours per week. There are already a number of existing provisions within the benefits system aimed at helping care leavers, and I would be happy to write to the noble Earl setting these out in more detail.

On the noble Earl’s suggested change to housing benefit, it is right to say that the rate of housing benefit to which care leavers are entitled changes when they reach the age of 22 and they move to the shared accommodation rate. However, as he will be aware, discretionary housing payments continue to be available via local authorities if additional financial help with housing costs is needed. The Government have already committed £870 million in discretionary housing payment funding over the next five years. Noble Lords will appreciate that this is a significant sum of money to help those who are vulnerable and require additional help with their housing costs.

The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, would amend the Local Government Finance Act 1992 so as to disregard care leavers from liability for council tax up to the age of 25, ensuring that dwellings occupied solely by care leavers are exempt from council tax. This amendment would provide a blanket exemption for all care leavers under the age of 25 irrespective of their personal circumstances or their ability to pay. If we did so without taking their ability to pay into account, we could find that a lower income tax payer could be supporting a care leaver with a higher income. I am sure that is not the intention behind the amendment.

The Government have been clear that such decisions are much better taken at local level instead of mandating exemptions or discounts from the centre. We have given local councils wide powers to design council tax support schemes, including scope for discounts for particular groups of people. It is therefore a matter for local authorities, which must consult with local communities on their proposals. Concerning the corporate parenting principles, they would impact on all local authority functions, including those relating to council tax or housing, and the guidance will set out how local authorities must ensure that they take holistic decisions in relation to looked-after children and care leavers.

I turn now to Amendment 50, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, which would place a new duty on local authorities to provide suitable accommodation for all care leavers in their local authority area until the age of 21. There are already a range of measures in place that help young people secure suitable accommodation when they leave care. The government’s statutory guidance states that when a young person leaves their care placement the local authority must ensure that their new home is suitable for their needs and linked to their wider plans and aspirations.

I would expect a local authority’s leaving care team to work closely with housing services to help care leavers access supported lodgings or semi-independent accommodation—or, if they are ready, secure and maintain an independent tenancy. Where care leavers struggle to find and maintain accommodation, they have a priority need within the homelessness legislation until age 22, and they are also a priority group within statutory guidance on the allocation of social housing.

We have also introduced, as the noble Earl will be aware, Staying Put to enable young people to remain living with their foster carers where that is what they both want. This provides both suitable accommodation and the sort of gradual transition to adulthood that is enjoyed by the majority of young people. We want to maximise the number of young people who can stay put with their former foster carers and I am delighted—and I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, will be pleased to hear—that for the year ending March 2015, almost half of those who were eligible to stay put did so.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the issue of Staying Put for those care leavers who have been placed in residential care. We are committed to helping all young people successfully move to adulthood but we would need strong evidence before introducing Staying Put on any alternative residential care. Sir Martin Narey’s independent review into children’s homes will set a direction for how we improve children’s experience of residential care, including transition to adulthood. We will publish this report shortly. We have also been trialling innovative approaches to providing care leavers with suitable accommodation. We are also keen to test new ways of supporting those who leave residential care and will set out our plans on this in the forthcoming Care Leaver Strategy.

Finally in this group I will respond to Amendment 80 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. The amendment would place a new duty on local authorities to appoint a person to make advice and information available to previously looked-after children with a view to improving their life chances. This Government share the noble Baroness’s belief that society should do all it can to ensure that a difficult start to a child’s life does not set them on an inevitable path to poor educational outcomes, homelessness or imprisonment. However, we do not consider that it is necessary or desirable to place a new burden on local authorities to appoint officers to support these children and young people.

There is a clear difference between this group of children and looked-after children or care leavers for whom the local authority is their corporate parent. These previously looked-after children will have parents or persons with parental responsibility who can provide a stable and loving family, support them to do well at school and provide extra help through the transition into adulthood and living independently. Most local authorities also already provide specific ongoing support for those who leave care under an adoption, special guardianship or child arrangement order. To help them in this role, we have already extended the adoption support fund to children who leave care under a special guardianship order. This is helping to ensure that their parents and local authorities are able to provide them with the therapeutic services they need to overcome their early disadvantage.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked me to take back these points and discuss them with my colleagues across government, which I will do, and, in view of the points that I have made, I hope that the noble Lords will feel sufficiently reassured to enable them to withdraw their amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful replies. They give us plenty of food for thought. I am clear that he has given very careful thought to these issues and I am grateful to him for that. It was very encouraging to hear that half of those young people eligible for Staying Put have taken up the offer. Of course, we both want it to go further, but it is encouraging. Staying Put is a very important step forward. I am glad that the Minister is listening to young people in care. We talked about that earlier. Listening to young people with experience of Staying Put is a very salutary, encouraging experience.

There is a concern about ISAs. The Minister may correct me, but I think that they represent a large sum of money being given to very young people. There is a risk that they may not use it well and that they will not be supported in using it. There is also a concern about the sums given by local authorities to care leavers. Some social workers will insist on receipts and manage the money carefully while others will just give them the money. At best the young people may waste that money, but some may use it to their own detriment. Perhaps the Minister could write to me to clarify what support there is for young people leaving care to manage those sums well. I would much appreciate that. I also thank him for his response.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I do not share the enthusiasm of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for the Minister’s response, because he seemed to say that this is all down to councils. These are the same organisations which have had their resources cut and cut and that are going to face more cuts. There would be no concerns if councils were able to deal with the problems, but that is not the case. I am sure that we will return to these issues on other days, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.