Children’s Social Care

Josh Newbury Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for her contribution to the report, drawing on her deep experience in this sector prior to coming to this place. Many of us come to this subject area also as parents. I am the parent of a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old, and found the stories that the Committee heard of children cut adrift by services at the age of 18—when young people are still growing into adulthood and need so much help and support—heartbreaking and unacceptable. We are calling for a national care offer, so that wherever care leavers are in the country, they know there is a guaranteed level of support to help them into the next stages of life.

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the report, which I look forward to reading in detail. I thank the Committee for all its work on this important matter, and of course the Chair for introducing its many excellent recommendations so comprehensively. There is a lot to go on, but I wish quickly to touch on two points. I declare an interest as a foster carer and adoptive parent, and I fully endorse the report, which highlights the huge widening gap in foster care provision. The emotional appeal for foster carers is powerful, but as the Committee said, it simply is not enough. Does the Chair agree that properly recognising the effort and complexity involved in fostering placements is urgently needed, most importantly for children in care? On support for care leavers, I have heard from too many who, on reaching 18 or even before then, move out of the council area where they were taken into care, so I also endorse the call for a national care leaver offer.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and for bringing his personal experience to the debate. I agree with him about foster carers. We looked in detail at the issue, and the gap between the numbers of people expressing an interest in foster care, compared with those who sign up and become foster carers, is enormous. We focused our attention on some of the practical barriers that prevent people from becoming foster parents, especially housing. That is particularly the case for foster carers who might be living in social housing. Housing policy does not adequately support people who might want to come forward but do not have enough space at home, when that is often the responsibility of the same local authority that is their landlord. We think that more could be done to overcome the practical barriers that foster carers face.