Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund

Emma Lewell Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

I was about to remind Members that they need to bob if they wish to speak in the debate, but I see everyone already has. I need to call the Front Benchers at 2.38 pm, so we will need to impose an immediate time limit of two and a half minutes. I call Helen Hayes, Chair of the Education Committee.

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[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) on securing this debate.

I have seen the difference that the adoption and support grant has made locally. I visited the Purple Elephant Project, based in Whitton in my constituency, which supports over 100 children and families in Hounslow and Richmond, including many who have been adopted, are in kinship care or are currently looked-after children in foster care. It provides intense professional therapeutic support.

The Purple Elephant team gave examples of the difference it has made, sometimes after a long period of therapeutic support, to benefit those children and families. I saw the safe and welcoming space it provides and understood the difference it makes. The children it has supported have all had a traumatic start to their life through neglect or abuse, and they have great difficulty building relationships and coping with school, siblings and any social situation.

Due to the close correlation between neglect, abuse and adoption, Purple Elephant and other organisations are heavily dependent on the grant for their sustainability. When I met our kinship care group, I heard that many of them, and the children for whom they are now guardians, gain from the services that the fund supports. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) cares deeply about this issue and is personally committed, but I ask her to address the problems.

Purple Elephant told me recently that it is not out of the woods yet. It is still being impacted significantly and having to fundraise to bridge the gap in funding and ensure that therapy sessions do not stop. Let us remember that it is not just the children and families who lose out because of the uncertainty and the cuts resulting from these decisions, but the therapists themselves, who have a living to make. Most of them are freelancers. They want to work with these damaged children and do not want their whole practice to be paid for privately by families who can afford it.

There must be equality here. Purple Elephant has told me that families are anxious, stressed and disillusioned about the loss of support and worried about how they will cope if these services—

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

Order.

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[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to speak in this very important debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) for securing it. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care and have lived experience of kinship care, so I know how significant this discussion is for families across the country, including in my constituency.

Since coming into office, I am pleased that the Labour Government have been engaging much more in the wider kinship conversation, and I want to acknowledge and welcome the positive steps that the Government have already taken in making it a legal duty for every local authority to have a kinship local offer once the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill receives Royal Assent. That local offer includes information about therapeutic support and is exactly what kinship families have long called for. I am grateful to the Minister for acting swiftly on that.

The adoption and special guardianship support fund provides vital therapeutic support for children who have experienced trauma and loss. Today’s announcement will extend funding for next year, and having that certainty is important, as it gives families some of the clarity and reassurance that they have been seeking. It is right that after supporting 54,000 children already, this much-needed fund is continuing. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to review the scheme and to launch a public engagement process, so that kinship families themselves can help to shape its future. I can say with confidence that the kinship care APPG will be more than happy to support the Government in that endeavour, having recently heard from a wide range of kinship carers in our evidence sessions.

Nevertheless, despite those welcome announcements, challenges remain. Support for kinship families still varies dramatically depending on where they live. The Family Rights Group’s 2024 audit found that a third of local authorities do not yet have a kinship care policy in place, despite being required to have one, and a survey by Foundations showed that not all have a designated kinship care worker. That postcode lottery simply is not good enough. Every family should be able to expect clear, consistent and accessible support.

The further challenge of the level of financial support now on offer through the fund disproportionately affects children with the highest need. The Kinship 2024 annual survey found that more than one in eight kinship carers said that they were concerned about their ability to continue caring for their kinship—

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Lee Dillon.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

Order. To ensure all Members get a chance to speak, we are going to have to reduce the time limit to two minutes. I call Josh Newbury.

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[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) for securing this debate. In a recent parent and carer survey examining the impact of cuts to the ASGSF, the findings were alarming. Some 71% of children have seen a reduction in the number of therapy sessions, and 34% of families have been forced into an unethical choice between having an assessment of their child’s needs but no treatment, or treatment of unassessed needs.

The cuts to therapeutic packages have led to an increase in school exclusions, which were already far greater than for non-care-experienced children. They have led to an increase in child-on-parent violence, impacting 75% of families. There are children experiencing suicidal feelings who no longer have therapeutic support. Only 1% of families answering the survey have found the new £3,000 fair access limit sufficient to meet their child’s needs. Just 1%—that is a dreadful statistic.

The Government’s changes to the ASGSF have contributed to placements without adequate therapeutic support, despite us knowing the harm that this causes. The Government should think again, consult with families and the sector, reverse the cuts and ensure that a permanent fund is created that allows all families access to the right levels of specialist therapeutic support, right from the start and throughout their young lives. Only then can children heal and thrive.

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

Unfortunately, we are going to have to reduce the time limit to a minute and a half. I call Martin Wrigley.

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) on securing this important debate and on the passion of her speech.

I would like to raise the serious challenges that adoptive families in my constituency face in accessing the adoption support fund and wider post-adoption services. Too often, the system is designed for crisis rather than prevention. Overstretched social workers are forced to firefight, and families wait months, even years, for help. One family in my constituency told me that their daughter showed clear needs from the moment she was placed with them as a baby, yet only now, at the age of eight, is she undergoing an education, health and care plan assessment. That is because her behaviour has escalated to the point at which she can no longer cope in mainstream school. For years, her parents fought for therapies and support, but they received only fragmented and inconsistent help.

Funding is another problem. Last year, a child received 14 sessions of therapy through the fund, but this year it has been cut to eight; the family is expected to pay privately if more is needed. They have already waited 16 weeks for a referral to a specialist paediatrician as the first step towards an EHCP for suspected foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Those are not isolated cases. Most children placed for adoption in the UK have experienced trauma, neglect or abuse, with a lifelong impact on development and behaviour. I urge the Government to rethink their approach. A care package should be the starting point for the adoption placement, not something that parents battle for—

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

Order.

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[Bobby Dean]

I absolutely agree, and that was the point that I was about to make. I am sure the Minister will tell me that money is tight, but I ask her over what time horizon she is considering this—five, 10 or 15 years? Families know that this is not a cost-cutting measure. They know how expensive it gets for the state if arrangements fail.

A family in my constituency—a couple of elderly grandparents caring for a teenager who keeps making attempts on their own life—cannot get the support they need, and that child is now under the care of the local authority, which is a far more expensive measure. How are the Government evaluating this fund and the impact it has on their finances? To me, it feels like they are saving a penny a day, and it is costing them a pound tomorrow. I say this to the Minister: restore the funding, guarantee it for good, and stand by those families who are doing our society such a service.

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, I remind the Opposition Front Benchers that if they take the full allotted 10 minutes, the Minister’s time to respond to the debate will be squeezed.