Remote Education and Free School Meals
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab) [V]
I am dismayed, but not surprised that, yet again, we are having to put pressure on this Government to do the right thing by hungry children in the middle of a pandemic. In the first five weeks of the initial lockdown, more than 2 million children experienced food insecurity. More than 4 million children are living in poverty. They are hungry every single day, every day of the year with no let-up in sight. Any decent Government would be proactively doing everything in their power to make sure that every single one of those children had access to nutritional healthy food.
The Secretary of State, at the outset of this debate, predictably reeled off schemes and grants that the Government have put in place. They were schemes and grants that they had to be shamed into providing, just as we saw last week, when yet another one of their associates was given public money to deliver meagre food parcels that, disgracefully, met the Government’s own guidelines. The Secretary of State is also missing the point. If the winter covid grant, the holiday activities and food programmes, the national school breakfast programme, and school meals vouchers and parcels were leaving no child without why are food banks inundated with desperate parents seeking help for their children? Why is it that UNICEF, for the first time in its 70-year history, is feeding hungry children? Of course, in the absence of any other support, I would not wish for these piecemeal and short-term schemes and grants to disappear. I will continue working with the Magic Breakfast scheme to press for the implementation of my School Breakfast Bill, because when the scheme ends in July, many children will be left with that gnawing hunger in their stomach at the start of their school day, and we all know that no matter how talented or amazing a teacher is, that hunger will impact on learning.
Just last week, Sustain found that £700 million from the soft drinks levy that was intended for school breakfast provision is unaccounted for. I hope that the Minister can confirm where that money has gone when she sums up. As the Food Foundation has recently called for, we need to rethink school meal provision, but we also need to stop looking at school meals in isolation. The reason that so many children are in poverty and going hungry is that we have had over a decade of cruel policy making that has plunged families into destitution and despair. That there are hungry children in a country as rich as ours is no accident, and it is not purely a result of this pandemic.
To those Government Members who have spent all day claiming that tonight’s debates and votes do not matter, I simply say this: they matter to millions of children and families; and they matter to the 3,000-plus children in South Shields who receive free school meals. How Members vote tonight lets them and all our constituents know what we stand for, who we are, and, more importantly, who it is that we really care about.
Exams and Accountability 2021
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
I would be delighted to add my hon. Friend’s name to the list of that army of volunteers who will go out there and help in schools. However, we do not just need invigilators; we also need markers—people who have experience as teachers, who are maybe retired—to come forward and assist us in this significant effort to ensure that papers are marked punctually. This is a great opportunity for people to give something back to the next generation and to schools in their community by either volunteering as an invigilator or coming forward as a marker.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
We have had yet another statement from the Secretary of State that did not mention children in care or children with special educational needs and disability. That is not surprising, since just last week the Court of Appeal found that he acted unlawfully in scrapping critical safeguards for those very children. Will he apologise and outline what support he is providing to them so that they are as exam-ready as every other child?
Gavin Williamson
We have a very proud history, actually; we put the needs of the most vulnerable at the heart of our response, whether it was the covid catch-up funding—making sure that extra funding goes to those children who most need it—or the fact that this country took a global lead in making sure that schools and colleges remained open for children with special needs and those who are most vulnerable. We led the world in that, and we are very proud that we took that lead.
Education Settings: Autumn Opening
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
I reassure both my right hon. Friend and students who are looking forward to the prospect of going to university in the next academic year about the importance we place on not just the educational offer of universities but the whole experience of going to university. We are working closely with Universities UK and the whole sector to ensure that we have a full and wide, proper opening of all universities so that they can welcome students through their gates. We are seeing a positive increase in the number of young people applying to go to university, and we will work with the sector to deliver on that. As a point of note, revised guidance for the HE sector will be issued later today.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
At the outset of the pandemic, the Government ignored the warnings from other countries about the seriousness of coronavirus. As a result, measures implemented were too late and cost lives. The World Health Organisation director for Europe has said that schools reopening has led to local flare-ups of cases right across member states, even with social distancing in place. Will the Secretary of State publish the scientific advice he is relying on that states that social distancing is not needed any more in our primary classes?
Gavin Williamson
As the hon. Lady will probably know, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies regularly produces and publishes its advice and evidence, and we have been completely open on that. I am not quite sure what she is suggesting. Should we never open schools? Will we deprive our children forever more of an education and accept that, until there is a vaccine, children will not be able to go back to school? We recognise there are big challenges ahead, which is why we have worked closely with the sector, because we understand the consequences to children of not getting back into school are great. That is why we will continue to strain every sinew to ensure that every child is back in school.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend is a great champion of those schools. I would like to mention Wightwick Hall, a school on the border between his constituency and mine. We recognise that it is really important to ensure that we get the guidance right, and we have been working closely with the sector to ensure that the specialist needs of many of those children, who sometimes have particularly complex health conditions, are met and that they have the ability to return to school at the very earliest opportunity if that is in line with their health needs as well. I hope to have the opportunity to join my hon. Friend on a visit to one of those schools in the not-too-distant future.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)
Due to covid-19, we have made some temporary flexibilities for local authorities. They are temporary, not permanent, and they are to be used only where normal procedures cannot be followed. I am told that the number of missing children at this time has decreased.
Free School Meals: Summer Holidays
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I am pleased that the Government have scrapped their active pursuit of a policy direction that would have seen 3 million children go hungry this summer, but it should not have had to take the powerful, heartfelt and game-changing intervention of Marcus Rashford to get to this point. The anxiety felt by families over the past few weeks could have been avoided had the Government acted sooner.
Clearly, when cross-party MPs signed my letter to the Secretary of State earlier this month asking for an extension of the voucher scheme, the money was there, so why has it taken until now? Even before coronavirus, children were regularly going without. Ten years of Tory Britain has seen a forceful and deliberate dismantling of the safety net that once existed to support those who, through no fault of their own, were struggling.
It is no secret that I do not trust this Government. We have a populist Prime Minister who has a habit of making sweeping announcements, such as this one today, when he knows his popularity is waning. Many of us have been here before. He lauded the holiday activities and food programme, yet this year it was predicted to reach only 4% of eligible children. He then announced £63 million of local welfare assistance, but that is not ring-fenced, so it will not be spent exclusively on free school meals.
I sincerely hope that the Minister can give us some of the detail we need about today’s announcement, because we are heading for a deep recession. This money will help us this summer, but the Government must start being honest about the drivers of food bank use and release the reports they are burying about that, and they must ensure that no child, let alone children in one of the richest countries in the world, goes hungry. Frankly, too many have already. I sincerely hope that today is a serious turning point.
Children and Young Persons
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
With this statutory instrument, the Government are trying to do what they failed to do in 2017, during the passage of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, and what they failed to do with their myth-busting guide in 2019.
In 2017, the Government proposed allowing local authorities, under the guise of innovation, to opt out of protective legislation for children. The aim was to deregulate, on the back of the LaingBuisson report, making the sector ripe and ready for privatisation. After a groundswell of cross-party objection both in and outside this place, the changes, which comprised a whole chapter of the 2017 Act, were removed at the 11th hour. In 2019, the then Minister disseminated a dangerous myth-busting document advising local authorities to dispense with the statutory guidance in relation to the most vulnerable children. Again, this attempt to deregulate and wipe away hard-fought-for protective legislation for children was eventually quashed and the document withdrawn.
Any child protection strategy—whether we are in a pandemic or not—that requires the dispensing of the law to achieve it is counterproductive and downright dangerous. I am not sure if the current Minister is aware, but the legislation that the Secretary of State so cavalierly dispensed with under this SI took decades to achieve and was hard-fought-for by the profession and in this place and the other place. It led to our having one of the safest child protection systems in the world.
However, the Secretary of State’s actions have removed the safety net, because since 24 April this year, vulnerable children in care of the state, which stands at a record of more than 78,000, have lost their right to visits from their social worker when they are in placement. They have lost their right to have reviews regarding their care. They have lost their right to have temporary carers who have an existing connection with them. They have lost their right to have their complaints thoroughly investigated. These changes either substantially dilute or remove 65 legal protections and, worryingly, the expiration date can be revoked. In other words, this may become a permanent change.
The fact that a child is in placement does not always mean that they are safe. That is why this legislation existed. Children have been harmed, even murdered, by their carers. The consequences of having no social worker oversight and no one visiting or speaking to them about their care could not be more serious.
This SI has also seen a relaxing of the requirements that govern children’s homes, a dispensing of fostering and adoption panels, emergency foster placements extended to 24 weeks and relaxations on placements away from a child’s home area, and for children who are privately fostered, there is no longer a timeframe on when the local authority needs to check up on them in that placement.
Despite the Government’s attempts to circumvent parliamentary scrutiny, they have also been disingenuous in stating that they have consulted key organisations about this SI when they have not. The facts are that a petition to withdraw the SI has, in a short timeframe, amassed over 7,300 signatures, and 51 organisations and over 452 individual social work professionals are calling for it to be withdrawn. Not a single local authority has publicly admitted asking for these changes. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), the Government are facing legal action from Article 39, because it, like many across this House who signed this prayer, has a grasp of the legislation and cares deeply about children. No social workers or local authorities regularly cite protective legislation for children as a block to them carrying out their role. What stops effective children and families social work is the constant barrage of cuts and resource stripping over the past 10 years.
To use this pandemic as an excuse to reignite experiments from 2017 and 2019 on the most vulnerable of our children is reprehensible. The Minister has so far been unable to explain to me the rationale and demand for these changes. I would like her to explain to the House today which local authorities, organisations and social workers asked for these changes, who was consulted on them, and when they were consulted. What involvement does the Chief Social Worker for Children and Families have in these changes? On which date did the Department begin assessing these changes? Additionally, the Minister should be able to share with us today how many local authorities have actually dispensed with these protections and what the outcome of such has been on the children concerned—because I cannot imagine, having been one myself, that a single social worker would allow any child they work with to be put at risk in this way.
I urge the Minister to revoke this SI immediately before she and her colleagues who follow their Whips on this vote are culpable for the significant harm that children may already be suffering and will certainly suffer in future.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)
This is a deeply unprecedented time, and it falls on all of us to protect and support those who are most vulnerable. Protecting vulnerable children has been at the heart of the Government’s response. Many Members have spoken with great passion this afternoon, and I welcome this opportunity to explain the work that the Government have been doing for vulnerable children.
Every child is different and different children are vulnerable for different reasons. Therefore, we have been setting up networks of support across the country for different groups of vulnerable children. For some vulnerable children, especially those with a social worker, attending school is an important protective factor. That is why schools, colleges and early years providers have remained open for them throughout. When children have not attended, we have worked with education settings and local authorities to ensure that social services are in touch with them. We have been surveying local authorities, and the vast majority of the most vulnerable children—those with a child protection plan—have been seen or contacted by their social worker within the past fortnight.
Children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities always face extra challenges, and this has been a particularly difficult time for them and their families, so we have asked education settings to ensure that those with education, health and care plans can attend their normal school setting, but that has to be on an individual risk-assessed basis to make sure that the child’s needs come first. We have also provided a wide range of specific online resources so that those staying at home can continue their education, and we have committed £37 million this year through the Family Fund to support more than 75,000 low-income families with disabled or critically ill children; £10 million of that is specifically in response to this pandemic.
Some 39,000 adoptive families have had extra help from the increase that we have made to the adoption support fund, and across the country our loving foster carers have been able to access extra help from the increases that we have put into the Fostering Network. Care leavers are particularly vulnerable and often face isolation, so we have made it clear that those who are due to leave care can stay in their current home. We have provided over £100 million of laptops and devices to care leavers and disadvantaged children so that they can stay in touch and access social care services, as well as education, putting care leavers and children in care first.
Teenagers in alternative provision are especially vulnerable, so we are wrapping those in year 11 who are in alternative provision with a bespoke package to support them not only now but through next year, too. For those suffering anxiety, we have increased mental health and wellbeing support and guidance for children, teachers and parents; we have invested in mental health charities; and, crucially, we have ensured that the new 24/7 mental health crisis lines are available to children as well as adults.
Domestic violence impacts on children, so we have worked with the Home Office to invest in specialist services and enlarged Operation Encompass, which brings together police and schools. We have funded the expansion of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and helped to promote its national helplines, so that people have a place to go if they are concerned that a child may be experiencing abuse or facing neglect. Our See, Hear, Respond project, led by Barnardo’s, will further support vulnerable children at risk of harm.
All that I have outlined is just some of the work that we have been doing. A massive amount of work has been undertaken. I thank parents, teachers, childcare providers, social workers, foster carers and our partners in the public, private and charity sectors for all they are doing to support children. I also thank children and young people themselves, especially those in care and in children’s homes.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
May I gently nudge the Minister to answer some of the questions that came from the Opposition? She is halfway through her speech and we have not yet we heard about the children affected by these changes.
Education Settings: Wider Opening
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend highlights an important benefit that can be given to children—the opportunity to spend vital time in a setting that will become their new school—and asks how we can help facilitate that. There is also the question of how we can relieve some of the pressures that may exist in the primary school system so that primary schools can look at bringing more children in. This is one of the options as part of the increasingly flexible approach that we will be taking to getting more children into school and more children benefiting from education.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I and Members across the House wrote to the Secretary of State asking for an extension of free school meals over the summer holidays. Already, more than 200,000 children have gone without meals during this pandemic. He knows full well that the holiday activities and food programme will target only 4% of the children eligible. Throughout the statement, he has referred to a long-term plan. What is in it, and where do hungry children fit into it?
Gavin Williamson
As at every stage, the interests of children and care for children in education is at the heart of it, but our focus as a Department has been how we can support schools in supporting their children. That is what we have seen over the last few weeks and that is what we will continue to do. The holiday activities resources that we are looking at rolling out will be an important step in helping local authorities to do that.
Children in the Care System: Sibling Contact
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for allowing me time tonight to speak on behalf of the thousands of children in care who are separated from their siblings and the thousands of care experienced adults who had to, and still do, endure this pain.
The relationships that adults deem to be the most important for children in care are not the same as those that are most important to children in care themselves. Government guidance acknowledges that maintaining contact with siblings is reported by children to be one of their highest priorities. Having that relationship ripped away causes them anguish on many levels. An Ofsted study showed that 86% of children in care thought it was important to keep siblings together and that three quarters thought councils should help children to keep in touch with their siblings. Yet shamefully, sibling contact levels in the care system remain woeful.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Lady has brought a very important issue to the House for consideration, and it affects my constituents as well. Does she agree with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which says:
“Sustained contact with siblings can promote emotional stability and wellbeing for children in care. Siblings share an identity, which can promote their self-esteem and provide emotional support while going through care proceedings”?
That is an opinion that should be lent weight, and we must do all we can to provide siblings with a legal right to contact where there has been no accusation of abuse or any other extenuating safety issue.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and those comments echo the legislative changes that I will propose later in my speech.
Recent research undertaken by the Centre for Social Justice suggests that more than 70% of looked-after children with a sibling in care are separated from that brother or sister, which is not surprising when the average number of sibling foster carers is one per local authority and some have none at all. For those being cared for in children’s homes, the number of children separated from their siblings is a staggering 95%. It is also worth noting that we do not know the true scale of that heartache, because the Government do not think it is important enough to record and gather data on how many siblings are not in contact with each other in the care system.
Considering that the Government’s misguided, ideological austerity agenda has led to them presiding over a record 78,150 children in care, a shortage of foster and residential placements and less overall capacity in the social care sector, it is likely that the real picture is far worse. It is against that backdrop that sibling contact is so important.
The groundbreaking Children Act 1989 requires local authorities to allow a looked-after child reasonable contact with their parents, but there is no parity of provision for a looked-after child’s contact with their siblings. If siblings cannot be placed together, they should have exactly the same rights to contact defined in primary legislation as they do with their parents.
Many siblings who come from neglectful or abusive backgrounds state that the only constant positive, reassuring and enduring relationship they have is with their siblings. After all, they have a shared experience together. No matter how horrific, those experiences are ones that only they will ever truly know about. Often for younger siblings their protector—the one and only person who has ever kept them safe—is their sibling. While it is not appropriate that an elder sibling should take on that role, it is a fact that they often do. Separating siblings in those circumstances can have consequences for placement stability and create an anxiety for both the younger and the elder sibling. If all they have both ever known is adults who cause them harm, those initial days in placement until they feel safe with their new carers are the most precarious. In that context, it is only right that sibling contact is given the same prominence as parental contact. It cannot be right that our primary legislation gives more weight to a child’s contact with those who may have, or who have, caused them significant harm than it does to contact with their siblings, who are totally blameless.
I vividly remember and will have etched on my brain forever—although I wish I did not—the times when, as a practising social worker, I removed children from their family homes. A promise I gave to them, and to all the children I worked with, was that if I ever made it to this place I would not let them down, and that is what leads me to this debate tonight.
Removing children from home is one of the most traumatic and heartbreaking experiences. It can be emotional overload for professionals, let alone the family. There is often a police presence, violence, tears and utter confusion. Once calm and away from their home, you are left with children alone in your car, having to explain to them by some roadside that not only are they going to be living somewhere else for an open-ended period, but they are also going to be separated from their siblings. That is the most painful part of all: no matter how you explain the situation, children often feel that it is the end not only of their family relationships but of their relationship with their siblings. With each one of the children you drop off at their respective placements, you see a muted relief that they are safe, but a deep sadness that they are alone. The wheels of social services then spin into action. Solicitors for the parents and the courts demand contact as enshrined in legislation for parents. It is done with urgency, but in a resource-poor environment, what has to be done is often what is done first. Guidance that recognises the importance of maintaining contact with siblings takes a back seat and is deemed a lesser priority.
Of course, some children will see their siblings at their parental contact, but that will often be only three or four times a week for one hour. Sibling contact tends to be rare, and at times may be only monthly, for one hour. At the end of the care proceedings children may be reunited with their parents at home or placed for permanence with their siblings, but the complications that a lack of previous consistent contact can bring to those new arrangements may have implications for placement breakdowns and dire consequences for the wellbeing of the entire family.
I am sure the Minister will remind us that Government guidance recognises the importance of maintaining contact between siblings when they are in separate placements, but we all know that guidance is no substitute for a clear duty. If the Government really valued and understood sibling relationships, they would allow their voices to be heard loud and clear with the full force of primary legislation. By simply amending section 34 and schedule 2 to the Children Act 1989 to include siblings and half-siblings, they would ensure that upsetting, harmful and costly cases could be avoided.
In one such case, five siblings had been in a placement together for five years. The fostering team agreed to move them to another authority with their carers, but then ripped the children’s worlds apart just before the move, advising them that they would be split up and that two of the siblings would go to a new placement. An advocacy service acting for the children took the case to court. The judge deemed that there was a case for judicial review, as article 8 of the European convention on human rights had been breached. The local authority eventually compensated the children, but they were never reunited, and spent the rest of their childhoods not only apart from each other but with zero contact. Two of the children never settled, and suffered immense feelings of loss not just for their siblings but for their former carers. How any Minister cannot grasp the opportunity to stop such utter destruction of children’s lives is staggering.
Throughout the passage of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, the then Minister, now the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), said that the Government harboured concerns that the changes that I was proposing—along with a plethora of experts and organisations—would not provide the flexibility for a case-by-case consideration of contact, but of course they would. The welfare checklist and other safeguards to ensure that parental contact is in the child’s best interest would apply in the same way to siblings. The Minister also promised that the Government would look at the anomaly in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010, which do not provide for contact with siblings who are not looked after. Three years on, however, no changes have been made.
In the year in which we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Children Act and the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, amid continued criticism of the Government’s appalling record in respect of our most vulnerable children, the new Minister could prove that the Government care about children and are ready to break away from the damaging trajectory they have been on for the last 10 years. She could commit herself to enacting one small yet profoundly important and significant legislative change. I just hope that in her response to my speech she will not let me down, but, more importantly, I hope that she will not let down the thousands of children who are currently having zero contact with their siblings.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) on securing this important debate. She is always a strong advocate for vulnerable children and young people, and has great experience in this area.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss the important topic of sibling contact for children in care. As the new Children and Families Minister, I want to thank foster parents, social workers, children’s services, and all those who dedicate their time, effort and skills to improving the lives of those children. I also thank the children themselves. I am committed to ensuring that all looked-after children benefit from the care and support to which every child is entitled. It is an important responsibility to ensure that vulnerable children are kept safe and are able to flourish.
The Government are implementing a wide range of reforms designed to improve outcomes. We will be taking forward a bold and broad review of the social care system, with the aim of better supporting, protecting and improving the outcomes of children and young people and their families. For the majority of looked-after children, maintaining family links through contact with parents, siblings, relatives and other connected people is extremely important. Contact can be crucial in helping them to develop their sense of identity, promote self-esteem and provide emotional support. Keeping in touch is consistently one of the most important issues that children and young people themselves raise, and I am really grateful to have the opportunity to discuss this today.
Each child’s needs, wishes and welfare must be considered when making decisions about their care. For many children, having contact with family, friends and others is hugely valued, and can help to support a stable and successful placement. That is why plans for promoting and maintaining contact must be included in every child’s care plan. By statute, a care plan must set out arrangements for the promotion and maintenance of contact with brothers and sisters, whether they are also in care or not, as long as this is consistent with the child’s welfare. The type of contact a young person has with their siblings needs careful consideration and planning, and should always be determined by what is best for the children concerned. Contact arrangements must be reviewed regularly, including by gathering and acting on the wishes and feelings of each individual child. However, while contact with siblings can be hugely valuable, it might not be the right decision in every case. Relationships are often complex and involve a range of emotions and potential risks.
The legal framework is clear on allowing contact between siblings and placing them together where it in their best interests. Historically, there have been concerns that some contact arrangements were not made on the assumption that contact should always take place.[Official Report, 16 March 2020, Vol. 673, c. 6MC.]
Mrs Lewell-Buck
On that point, could the Minister please advise me where that is to be found in primary legislation?
Vicky Ford
I shall come to the specifics just now.
This was why the Children and Families Act 2014 emphasised that contact should not directly undermine the welfare and safeguarding of children in care. Schedule 2 to the Act requires that local authorities promote contact between a looked-after child and any relative, friend or other person connected with the child as long as this is consistent with the child’s welfare and is reasonably practical. That includes siblings. Section 34(2) enables a court to make a contact order between a child in care and any named person. This may of course include—
Vicky Ford
Just let me finish this sentence, if I may, as it will bring me to what I think the hon. Member wants me to say about what we are going to do next.
Section 34(2) enables a court to make a contact order between a child in care and any named person. This may of course include any siblings, whether or not they are also in the care system. As the hon. Member rightly said, during the passage of the Children and Social Work Bill in 2017, we committed to updating the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010. This would make explicit reference to contact with siblings who are not looked after, as well as those who are. We have begun an internal review of the regulations, and I am pleased to confirm to her, within my first few weeks in this job, that we intend to update the regulations before the end of this year, alongside implementing the Government’s response to the current consultation on unregulated provision.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for that, but with all due respect, will she please confirm that sibling contact is not mentioned anywhere in primary legislation? That is the point of this debate.
Vicky Ford
I would like to confirm that it refers to any relative, which can include any siblings, but I take the hon. Lady’s point and I will look at it. As I said, will be updating the regulations.
Ultimately, all contact decisions should be based on each child’s individual circumstances. The current legislation provides for flexibility for decisions to be made case by case, and we have committed to revising the statutory guidance on fostering to ensure that it is clear, straight- forward and focused on the importance of the child’s voice. This will emphasise the need for relationships outside immediate placements to provide young people with a sense of belonging that lasts into adulthood. Those revisions will need to be undertaken in consultation with children, foster parents and other stakeholders. We will set out a timetable for that in due course.
The role of the independent reviewing officer is key to making sure that, where appropriate, sibling contact takes place. They must check that the child is happy with their contact with siblings, and that the frequency and quality of contact are right for them.
We know that the quality and consistency of IRO services remains variable, and we are working to promote a coherent strategy for improvement. We have formed a new steering group with the national IRO organisations and key national partners. Furthermore, there is a specific requirement for the care plan to set out arrangements for the promotion and maintenance of contact with brothers and sisters, as far as is consistent with the child’s welfare. That is in paragraphs 3(1) and 3(4) of schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989 care planning guidance.
Regarding advocacy, which the hon. Lady mentioned, all children must have access to an advocate to help them express their feelings and to ensure that their views are taken into account. This especially includes their views on sibling contact. We have committed to improve the awareness of and access to advocacy services for children and young people.
On Monday evening, I was delighted to announce that the Government will take this commitment forward through consultation later this year on a revised and fully updated version of the national standards for advocacy for children. We have also confirmed that we will extend the advocacy “safety net” service, Always Heard, run by Coram Voice, for another 12 months.
Foster parents play a crucial role in supporting the children in their care to stay in touch with the people who matter to them. We know that it often falls to carers to facilitate contact between children and their families, and that this can be challenging. In 2018, the Government published “Fostering Better Outcomes”, which sets out our vision for the foster care system in England. Through “Fostering Better Outcomes”, we urged social workers to talk to children about what is important to them, including former foster parents and foster siblings. We called for this contact to be encouraged and facilitated if it is what is best for that child.
Foster parents are often best placed to understand the child and their needs, so it is essential that they are included in the decision-making process and properly supported to manage contact arrangements. We want to understand where this partnership working is working well, how we can share good practice and how to ensure that foster carers are always an integral part of placement planning. Therefore, we will launch a network of fostering trailblazers this year. That will initially focus on support for foster carers, ensuring that they are empowered to have input into decisions for the children in their care, including on supporting children through contact.
I also want to put on record my support for the Fostering Network’s campaign, Keep Connected, which promotes maintaining relationships for children and young people through and beyond periods of transition.
Maintaining relationships and contact with siblings, family or other trusted individuals can help to give children the stability they need to develop. We want children to experience stable care placements and the consistency of relationships, and for them to keep in touch with the people who are most important to them.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
The Minister is generous in giving way again.
What checks do the Government carry out on how many children and young people in the care system actually have contact with the siblings they are separated from?
Vicky Ford
As the hon. Lady has said, the Government do not have statistics on that, but we are looking at reviewing the regulations and, as I have just said, sharing better practice.
We want children to experience stable care placements and consistent relationships, and we want them to be able to keep in touch with the people who are most important to them. We need to equip social workers with the skills and knowledge to make effective decisions on permanence and the importance of relationships. That is one reason why we have funded the development of continuous professional development resources focused on permanence, and this material is now available to the sector.
Enduring relationships are often what gives us the resilience that we all need when things go wrong, so the importance of maintaining contact with siblings and other trusted individuals cannot be overestimated—I understand that. Contact with siblings is the right thing to do when it is in the best interests of an individual child.
This is the first time I have spoken in a debate as a Minister, so let me reassure the House that I am committed to securing the best possible outcomes for children and young people in care. I look forward to working across the Floor with Members who have such experience to make sure that these children are happy, and are able to have happy, stable and fulfilling lives.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend raises an important point. That is why we have committed to putting an extra £1 billion into children and adults’ social care. I would be happy to speak to him about what more we can do to support rural counties and the delivery of these vital services.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
If the Secretary of State really is serious about improving children’s social care, can he explain why a letter sent to him in January, which was signed by 631 experts and myself, to request an independent, whole-system review has been completely ignored?
Gavin Williamson
I will certainly take up the issue of why that correspondence was not responded to immediately. I am sure that the hon. Lady recognises that it was within our manifesto—we have already announced it—that there will be an independent review looking at the care system for our children, and that is something that she will perhaps welcome.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Michelle Donelan
I will do my best to answer that comprehensive question. I can assure the hon. Member that both I and the Government take this matter seriously. However, out-of-area placements can be in the child’s best interests if they are at risk of exploitation or if they need specialist provision. We have been addressing the supply of the care sector. In fact, we have invested over £200 million in innovation funding and over £500,000 to try to bolster the number of foster carers. I draw her attention to the care review that we pledged to do in our manifesto, which will look at the entire care system.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Three years ago, instead of increasing children’s care home capacity in England, the Government introduced legislation that forced vulnerable children from England to be placed in Scotland. In 2018, over 70 children were moved, some over 300 miles away from their home, their family and their support networks. Can the Minister tell us exactly how the local authorities with caring responsibility for those children living miles away are discharging even their most basic statutory obligations, and is she entirely content to preside over this deliberately cruel and harmful legislation?
Michelle Donelan
I believe the hon. Member is referring to a case where a number of out-of-area placements were made in Scotland. We have recently put £40 million extra into capital funding for secure homes, but the whole point is that this is a very complex issue that needs a comprehensive care review—that was part of our manifesto—and I have already begun to work on that.