Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

We have regular meetings with all the devolved authorities, and we share ideas about what we are doing and our policies so that we can learn from one another. There is no monopoly on good ideas; we are always open to listening and sharing.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Since the publication of the independent review of children’s social care, which will also improve the use of family hubs, hundreds of children have been taken into care while millions in profits have been put into the private sector. When will the Secretary of State publish the Government’s delayed response to the review? Will she look at York being a pilot to ensure that we can move forward quickly?

[Gillian Keegan]

I assure the hon. Lady that the Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing—the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho)—is working actively on the matter. The response will be published soon, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will be happy to discuss further how we will roll that out and implement it.

Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important and timely debate on children in the care system.

It is imperative that we see investment in a new approach to keep young people safe and supported, and to rebuild services and skills around their needs. In this debate, we must be mindful that millions of parents have excelled in nurturing their children in loving, secure homes—but sadly that is not everyone’s story. Good parenting takes skill, time and patience. That is why parents, foster carers, kinship carers and adoptive parents are simply amazing. No matter the relationship, when there is a cry for help, it must be heeded.

Asylum-seeking children, disabled children and those with learning disabilities or from minoritised groups need excellence and care; they need safe, secure and loving homes. That is what we want for every child. Tragically, for too many, that is not their experience. We worry, and we have to act. Serious case reviews shake us, they are aired in this place and then they are filed, until we are reminded by the next report, and then the next.

The story is familiar: invisible children, overstretched services, social workers drowning in demands, warning signs—and then it is all too late. Children disappear between agencies, between the multitude of social workers who are never given the chance to excel as they are squeezed by demand. Parents are let down, children are let down. Parents endure the pain of separation from their children, just because life failed them—life went wrong. If only the system had time to break in and break the intergenerational cycles to provide the very best early interventions.

There are half a million children in need of support, 82,170 of them residing in the caring system. If we do not pivot, it will be 100,000 in a decade. But they are not numbers: they are our future, they are our now, they are our children. Like all of us, they want to know they are safe. They want love. They want family.

We get it. Life is hard. Parenting is really tough, and where there is little support and stress presses in, something breaks. However, when children’s social services are under-resourced and overwhelmed, reparation is harder. Take Ava, who was placed in foster care when family hardship meant she was not provided with the care she needed. She moved far away, separated from her brother and sister. On the cusp of turning 18, she was told to move out and is now living alone in an unfamiliar town, all because her family struggled. That is not care.

I think of the young mum desperate to do the right thing, but not supported to parent before the painful adoption order is granted. The trauma never leaves her. I think of parents not coping with complex needs and complex relationships, coercion and control, violence in the home, poverty knocking on the door, isolation and poor mental health. I think of the children left lonely, afraid, neglected, in need of care, and sadly, for some, in need of safety. I think of those sucked into slavery: from county lines to sexual exploitation, they disappear, lured by the promise and the hope of better, then destroyed. Sometimes, thing just go wrong.

We all know the stories, because these are our constituents. That is why we are here—not to make another speech but to lever in change. The Minister has the power to make that happen. There is a blueprint on the Minister’s desk: to cut the number of children in care by 30,000 in a decade and to make countless more families thrive. If Government really grasp the urgency and importance of this, they will find the money, too, not least as they will see the return quickly.

Last May, Josh MacAlister published his independent review of children’s social care. We are waiting for the Minister’s response. We need the reforms and the funding in full. For children in and around the care system, time is not on their side. Key parts of the workforce are contemplating their future. Families are under ever growing stress, as are services, and children need to be kept safe. The power of the report is in its echoing of the voices of people with care experience. Their aspirations must turn into Government ambitions. From the outset, it would be unethical for Government to speak of pilots for implementation. Clearly, every authority has its differences—some have better leadership, some better funding, and some are already on the path of reform—but to leave an authority behind would be to leave a child behind.

Secondly, on funding, may I remind the Minister that the total package would cost just £2.6 billion? The cost of children’s social care is £10 billion a year right now, and the current cost of adverse outcomes is £23 billion a year. Not to act will cost £15 billion in 10 years’ time and have a higher social tariff, too. The Minister cannot afford not to implement now. Any delay will cost her and cost families.

Investing in families is the most pressing reform, by bringing together multidisciplinary teams from across agencies together to input into, support and transform families, with health, mental health, education, social services and families working together. It is about building families, investing in families, and getting the right support to families in the right time. We need family help delivered by brilliant practitioners through family hubs and schools, with skilled and intensive support from the first 1,001 critical days through to childhood and adolescence, and into young adulthood—one team around one family, one assessment process and one plan; radical help, bringing radical resolution.

Rachel de Souza’s report, “Family Matters”, encourages the wider involvement of family, recognising their role in raising a child and, if the child is entering care, the interventions they can make, including through kinship care, which is today homing 162,000 young people. Having a family network plan will unlock the potential of the wider family role in supporting parents and caring for children, not least when a new placement is sought. The Mockingbird project provides networks of support around foster carers, but could be extended to recognise wider community networks. Supporting families in the context of society builds more sustainable, resilient families.

For some, adoption is the path forward, but this must change, too. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for adoption and permanence. Our report, “Strengthening Families”, highlights the cracks in the system. There is inequality, with some children taking longer to place—sibling groups, minoritised children, disabled children, and older children too. We need better matching, and they need better support, but adoption is more than family matching. We need excellence in family building and trauma therapy, too.

In the social media age, children are finding birth parents, and birth parents are finding children. Instead of being well prepared, they are doing that on their phones, alone in their bedrooms. The trauma from the intrigue can be devastating, not least as life’s journey of questions may not produce the hoped-for answers. At worst, it can destroy both families and the child. More open processes can be safer.

Strong leadership leads to strong services. We need the very best leaders heading up services—one controlling mind driving through this once-in-a-generation reform. From here, we need confident and competent key workers. Social workers are too often thrown into the deep end before learning to swim, or are drowning in paperwork when families need their skills. Sixty-five per cent. of children have more than one social worker in a year, and 27% more than three. It is not acceptable. Building an early careers framework will grow the skills of graduates, so that they gain experience, make a positive difference and work with a safe case load, with the mentors, learning and supervision necessary to make them excel as professionals. After five years, practitioners can then seek posts that demand higher levels of expertise and clear, focused, decision making, such as in child protection. They need that experience.

There is a proposal for a national pay scale, which is right. I look at what Agenda for Change did for the NHS. It built workforce stability and pay transparency, and it helped people to build their careers. The pay market, fuelled by the spike in agency workers, is like a magnet. Areas that pay less are often where the greatest needs are, escalating workforce churn and leading to disruption for families. The use of agencies must end. Not only are costs out of control, but it is in the interests of neither the practitioner, the service, nor, especially, the child. Everything must relentlessly focus on young people, improving their futures, opportunities and safety. Service improvement commissioners must challenge and improve services, not just assess them, so that excellence is achieved in all areas at all times.

But even when taken into the arms of the state, into residential care, as 16% of children in care are, they face multiple placements, of which 20% are neither good nor outstanding. Thirty-seven per cent. of placements are more than 20 miles away, some in unregulated, unsuitable settings, as I found out from children in my own constituency. These are places profiteering out of the most fragile of children. Seventy-eight per cent. of residential care places are provided in the private, for-profit sector. This failure on availability, quality and costs demands reform, as set out in the Competition and Markets Authority report. On average, profit margins rose by 22.6% from 2016 to 2020, an average of 3.5% a year above inflation, with total costs of £1.33 billion to these organisations, but for a child with complex needs the costs are limitless. So why are people profiting out of children?

As for quality, these services are rated more poorly, violate more requirements and are rated more negatively. The CMA’s “Children’s social care market study” also outlines fears of market disruption, as private equity firms have overreached and carry substantial debt. A closure would be disruptive. Even the Minister, Baroness Barran, said

“it sticks in my throat to have private equity investors”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 November 2022; Vol. 825, c. 449]

in this role.

The chair of a Government review of private children’s home providers found that children are being failed as the largest providers make millions in profit. New regional care co-operatives need to sort that out. As partners of local authorities, they can provide the scale and focus to oversee fostering—particularly when 9,000 new foster carers need recruiting, training and supporting—and residential care. We must rid the market of such responsibilities and rebuild outstanding therapeutic and homely facilities, with the very best of staff.

The ambition of the review must be fulfilled, so that every child is loved, healthy and happy, excels in school and then work, and is safe and secure. Being care-experienced will never leave a person, but adopting this as a protected characteristic will help with navigating life. Above all, the child must always have a strong voice. The independent reviewing officer has been that voice and changes to the role, while questioned, have pointed to the conclusion that every child needs a competent practitioner the child trusts who will advocate for them. Of course prevention is vital. Understanding the intersections between poverty, life’s challenges and family must guide wider policy choices, but starting with the reforms we are debating today will secure a necessary workforce reset and provide every child with the care, love and safety they need. We must not let these young people down; they have ambition and so must we.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is so right. I fear I am in danger of making a long speech; I rarely do so, but we do have some time this afternoon, and such good interventions are being made that I will indulge them—if you will indulge me, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is such an important subject, and my hon. Friend is right that too often in the past, we have measured things not on the quality of the outcomes, but on the way we can measure them and tick the appropriate box.

At the end of the day, what matters is not whether all the processes and procedures set out in the rulebook have been followed. The only thing that matters is whether the intervention of the state through the medium of the social worker, the local authority children’s social care department, the foster carer, or whoever has had a meaningful and beneficial outcome for the welfare of that child. That is what section 1 of the Children Act 1989—which is still so relevant today, 33 years on—says is how we should judge whether we should be making those interventions, and how we should measure their impacts. I am afraid that it was too much about whether we complied with certain pages in the manual and whether we could tick all the boxes, regardless of the impact or the outcomes for the child.

The problem 10, 12 or 15 years ago was that too many people were studying social work at university because it was an easy degree to get into. A third of them dropped out during the degree, another third dropped out after a year in the social profession, and only a third went on to be social workers. We spent a lot of money on training people, two thirds of whom did not end up in that important profession, which I call the fourth emergency service.

“No more blame game” was appropriately titled, because social workers were always the butt of everybody’s criticism. Social workers do not kill babies and vulnerable children; it is evil carers or parents who do that. For social workers, it is a question of how and when they can intervene, hopefully to lessen the chances of adults doing cruel things to children, which they will always do. All we can hope to do is minimise the opportunities and try to detect them before they manifest themselves.

[Rachael Maskell]

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech. One of the things that has constantly dogged the profession has been the pressure, the extent of the case loads and the circumstances that social workers and other professionals work under. Those pressures are not abating at the moment, as local authorities are facing significant pressures as well. Is it not crucial that we build a proper multidisciplinary workforce plan to ensure that every child gets the time and the professional support that is needed to do the things that the hon. Member is talking about?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I will come on to case loads in a minute.

It is about getting highly motivated and qualified students to go into studying social work. It is about getting better training for those students to become professional social workers and then holding on to them, because we have a real problem with retention at the moment.

We raised the status of the profession by bringing in principal child and family social workers, who were senior social workers with great experience. They were not just put behind a desk and given managerial responsibility when they were promoted. They also had frontline casework, so we did not lose their valuable experience; they were able to pass it on by mentoring newly qualified social workers.

Step Up to Social Work was a fantastic programme, like Teach First, with well-qualified, motivated and energetic people making a change in direction and going into social work. In many cases they were the shock troops, going into really challenging areas and bringing a fresh approach. That approach was carried on by Frontline, to an extent, but its origin was in Step Up to Social Work, and I have to say that it did it in a rather more cost-effective manner.

We created the role of chief social worker. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley will remember well our conversations in 2007 with the chief social worker for New Zealand, which was the inspiration for our recommendation. Of course we should have one—we have a chief medical officer and a chief veterinary officer, so why would we not have a chief social worker to look after the interests of children? That was one of our key recommendations in 2007, and the chief social worker was appointed some five years later.

The new report mirrors the plea that the Munro report made in 2011 for early help—all we have done is rename it family help. As hon. Friends have said, we can be so much more effective by intervening early than by responding retrospectively and firefighting the problem when a child may have been irreparably damaged. We need to ensure that we have vulnerable families on the radar, getting intervention and support services early on, if possible to keep the child with their birth family by giving them the support they need, rather than have the social worker knock on the door when the child is about to be taken into care. It is such a false economy to react rather than intervene proactively. We have lost too much of that proactiveness, I fear.

We find ourselves coming almost full circle to high vacancy rates in the social work profession. Too many experienced, grey-haired social workers are burnt out and leaving the profession early, and are unable to pass on their great wisdom, experience and mentoring skills to new social workers coming into the profession. We find ourselves with case loads that are, again, too heavy. I remember one former, very distinguished director of children’s services, Dave Hill, who very sadly died just a year or two ago. He started part of his career in Essex and later became president of the Association of the Directors of Children’s Services. When he took over the Essex children’s services department after it had been failed and was going through a rough period, he got all the social workers in front of him and said to some of them, “Right, list your cases.” Several social workers went through their cases, and when they got to No. 16 or 17, they started struggling to remember them. Mr Hill’s response was: “That’s probably the limit of the case load you can manage, isn’t it?”

It is not rocket science. If a social worker is struggling even to remember the names of the vulnerable families they are looking after, they probably have too many families. That approach was not rocket science but common sense. Too often, social workers’ case loads are too heavy and they are chasing their tails from one case to the next. That is when things get missed. In their complex and challenging profession, social workers have to notice things, and they can do that only when they cross the door threshold, look in the fridge to see why the kids are not being fed properly, inspect their wardrobe and eyeball the mother who they suspect is not looking after the kids properly. It is not all done on a computer, and it cannot be done if social workers have to rush to their next appointment because they have so many cases to get through within an eight-hour working day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I will be looking at that carefully. The heart of what we want to do is to make sure that all people have these powerful relationships in their lives. As he ably pointed out, that is what we expect for our friends and families and actually everyone deserves to have those people who will go the extra mile for them.

On our ambitions for this area, first, I come to our ambition for families. Many Members spoke eloquently about the importance of families. They are at the heart of what makes us happy and well, so when families are struggling we should provide rapid and intensive multidisciplinary support at the right time to help to fix the issues. Lots of Members talked about early intervention and I completely agree that that is the core issue here. We want to make sure that our programmes improve early help services from birth to adulthood. We want to build a strong evidence base on what works to support families to turn around difficult situations, and I would particularly like to thank the Children’s Commissioner for part 1 of her recent excellent review of family life. There was a comment from the shadow Minister about our lack of ambition in this area. I gently point her towards our ambitious reforms on domestic abuse and on drug and alcohol addiction, reducing parental conflict. We talk about prevention to make sure that people are not suffering from the kind of trauma that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) set out movingly. These programmes are both important and exactly the right place to start.

[Rachael Maskell]

What keeps me awake at night is knowing that poverty levels are rising sharply. It is those pressures on families that often lead children into the care system. Given that the report did not have the remit to look into the intersection between poverty and the challenges that families face, will the Minister ensure that she puts more pressure on her Government to put the protection around families so we do not see children having to go into the care sector?

[Claire Coutinho]

As someone who has been working on the cost of living challenge for the past 18 months, I can say that it has been a priority of this Government, during the pandemic and into the energy crisis, to support the most vulnerable households. That has exactly been our impetus in these times.

Our second ambition is for child protection. The murders of Arthur and Star have sickened us all. The recommendations of the national panel aim to ensure that such terrible incidents are as rare as possible and, when children are at risk of harm, to ensure that we intervene quickly and decisively through a more expert and multi-agency child protection response. The hon. Member for Bath had a question about developing our understanding of sibling sexual abuse. Nothing in this area should be taboo. We are looking at the evidence base via our child sex abuse centre. I am happy to discuss these things further with her.

Local authorities, police and health services are under statutory duties to work together to safeguard children. We will use the recommendations of all the reviews to support them.

Thirdly, on foster care and kinship care, I agree that the John Lewis advert was touching, providing an exciting opportunity for us to talk more about this area. Where children cannot be looked after safely by their parents, we should properly support wider family networks to step up and family-like environments. At the moment, there are practical, financial and cultural barriers to some of this, particularly some of the ethnic disparities that have been mentioned today. But moving in with a relative or people from one’s own community provides a strong chance of achieving the kind of lifelong stability that children need. We need to encourage the system always to look to wider family before care outside the family and to help to equip families to do this where that is in the child’s best interests. Many Members also mentioned adoption. We set out a strategy last year and that will also be an important part of our solution here.

Our fourth ambition is for the care system. Where family is not an option, the care system should provide stable and loving homes. Again, I echo the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who said that it was very sad that some people do not have what other people have: a loving family home. The care review found that supporting children in the care system also needs to be focused on outcomes. That has been widely discussed today and it is absolutely right. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) movingly set that out, saying that we must focus on the outcomes. I also pay tribute to John from Plan B who sounds like a thoroughly brilliant man in all the work that he is doing to help people in this regard.

The number of times that children move homes was mentioned in a couple of speeches. Care-experienced people whom I have spoken to in the past couple of weeks talked about children moving 21 times. That is not the kind of situation that we need to set up the relationship that we think are so important for people.

While we are considering all the recommendations to support young people and to get those outcomes that we have been talking about, we have also been working in close partnership with Departments across Government and with Ofsted. What is clear is that the continuing status is not an option, although I gently say to the shadow Minister that the trajectory has been positive and that there has been a huge amount of work from dedicated teams to try to get that good and outstanding level from 36% to 55%, and to reduce the number of local authorities that have been judged to be inadequate. I pay tribute to them for their work. Of course, we must continue. We must not accept any failure in this area, but they have done exceptional work so far.

Our fifth ambition relates to the workforce, which the hon. Member for York Central, who I know has great experience in this area, my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley and my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), who is always so interesting on this issue, all talked about. We must equip the children’s social care system with the people and tools it needs to do a good job of supporting all those who need its help. That means a skilled and empowered workforce, better data and transparency and clear system direction.

We have committed to a national framework for children’s social care and are working to publish a draft of that alongside the implementation strategy. We will also continue to work closely with Ofsted, which plays an important role in the intervention and improvement programme.

Finally, by far the most important factor in achieving success will be the people delivering the vision. I am sure this House will join me in paying tribute to every social worker and all those supporting children, such as workers in children’s homes and foster carers. They are there tirelessly, day in, day out, providing support to children and their families. We will bring forward proposals to support the workforce and foster carers to ensure they have the right skills and strong leadership.

I am proud to be responsible for a system that has been shown to help children to recover from traumatic experiences and often to succeed against the odds, but the children’s social care system cannot do it all. A young person’s success is driven by many different factors and actors. I want other parts of the local council system, the school system, the health service and many others within and outside Government to do all they can to give our children the best possible start in life. Children’s social care cannot do it alone and we cannot do anything at once, but this is a programme for a long-term, once in a generation reform. We will start by laying the foundations for a system that is built on love and the importance of family.

[Rachael Maskell]

This has been an incredibly powerful debate and the quality has been of the highest standards of this place. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, including my hon. Friend the shadow Minister, and the Minister for setting out her proposals.

It is disappointing to hear that we will have to wait until the new year to hear about the Government’s implementation plan, but I trust it will come with strength and fortitude when it comes. Certainly we look forward to seeing that, scrutinising it and pushing the Minister further to make sure that it goes the furthest that it can.

We are indebted to Josh MacAlister for the careful consideration he has given to the future of children within the care system. We are also indebted to all those who step up, day in, day out, to care for children—be they social workers and other professional staff, charities and local authorities, parents, adoptive parents, foster carers or kinship carers. For the children who are dependent on us, we cannot let them down. We cannot give them second best. I trust the Minister will do her utmost to make sure we see the real transformation that those children deserve.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The rules of this House are very clear: should any hon. Member be visiting another Member’s constituency, they are to inform them in advance and in good time. The ministerial code is also very clear that any Minister undertaking an official visit should do the same. Today, the Secretary of State for Education visited a school in my constituency but sadly failed to inform me of the visit. I am concerned, because she is the third Minister to visit my constituency in the space of six weeks without informing me. My making this point of order is becoming a regular occurrence and something I should not have to do. May I just seek your guidance on how to ensure that everybody adheres to the rules of this House?

Adoption: Support for Birth Families

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and he makes a good point. I would always recommend honesty and transparency in everything and there can obviously be challenges where that is not followed. As I said, everything should be done in the long-term interests of the child.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate on birth parents, because we know that they often experience a lot of trauma, not least in the age of social media where they can have unsupported contact with their birth child and even more trauma can occur as a result. That is why the all-party parliamentary group for adoption and permanence published a report looking at strengthening families, including the voices of birth parents. Does she not think it is important for those voices to be heard throughout the adoption process?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and commend the work of the APPG. I called this debate to give more exposure and a greater voice to birth parents, because she is absolutely right that the subject is not discussed enough. She talks about the contact between children and their birth parents, which is likely to be more constructive if birth parents have been supported through the adoption process and beyond.

That is why I want to bring the House’s attention to the work of a unique local charity in my constituency that provides invaluable support to birth parents. It is unique because Families in Care is a charity for birth parents that was set up by birth parents. To my knowledge, it is the only charity in the country that offers the services that it offers. It was originally set up in 1986 by birth parents of adopted children as a parent-led support group. It became a charity in 1992 and employed its first part-time worker. Since its beginning, the delivery model has been nurturing, non-judgmental, holistic and, most importantly, done in partnership with birth parents. My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) had a university placement with this charity. She is unable to be here this evening, but wanted me to pass on that she gained invaluable experience from her time with Families in Care.

Before I say more about Families in Care, I want to discuss the difficult climate in which it operates. Removing a child from their parents should be a last resort, but that last resort is necessary—all too necessary—and it happens all too often. Over 80,000 children are currently in care in England. This is an all-time high, and it means more children who need our support and more birth parents who need support. The erosion in early help for vulnerable families in recent years, particularly since the Conservative Government came into office in 2010, has been shocking. More than 1,300 Sure Start centres across the UK have closed since 2010, a loss that is not nearly matched by the paltry commitment to open family hubs in just 75 locations. I hope the Minister recognises the impact of that on the adoption and care system.

My constituency in Newcastle has been hit particularly hard. Newcastle saw a 20% increase in the number of looked-after children between 2018 and 2021 alone. The North East Child Poverty Commission’s report this year shows that the north-east has the highest proportion of looked-after children in England, at 108 per 10,000 children. According to the directors of north-east children’s services, this means:

“The North East is in a vicious cycle with levels of demand causing pressure across the system and spiralling costs.”

Analysis from the University of Liverpool shows that the rise in cared-for children has coincided with rising child poverty. Given that, under the Conservatives, the north-east has become the child poverty capital of the country, this is particularly concerning for us. We are once again, after today’s announcements, faced with real-terms public sector cuts, and local authorities—already under enormous pressure—and working people are being expected to bear the burden. Newcastle City Council will have to make the £25 million it spends on children in care go further, placing yet more pressure on the care system and the parents themselves.

However, this is not the only issue. There are inequalities in adoption rates and the number of children coming into care, both in levels of deprivation and ethnicity. In 2020 in Newcastle, white children left social care settings for adoption at double the rate at which non-white children left social care settings for adoption. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups are also over-represented in the care system, and are more likely to experience low rates of adoption and fostering compared with national averages.

It is for this reason that the work of Families in Care is so important. The charity provides free, independent and specialist advocacy support, counselling and education for birth parents who are involved in child protection and care or adoption proceedings in Newcastle. Families in Care has been supported since its establishment by Newcastle City Council. However, it remains independent of the local authority, working in collaboration with the council’s children’s services to provide an invaluable mediating service.

I visited Families in Care in October this year, and I was struck by the atmosphere of support, welcome and warmth. I learned of the bespoke care, mediation, wellbeing support and counselling that families receive during all stages of the adoption process before, during and well beyond court proceedings. This bespoke care includes Len, its therapy dog, who I was fortunate to meet. I am told his nickname is Red Len, which is a reference to his beautiful ginger coat and apparently also to his politics, but as I do not speak Husky, I was unable to verify that.

Families in Care also offers learning and development sessions, mediations, therapeutic art, meditation and weekly mental health drop-ins over a cup of tea for parents. I saw one poignant and beautiful work of art, a bright collage of art and craft materials coming together to create a tree wrapped in a rainbow. It carried a powerful message to parents:

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says I’m possible.”

Through being rooted in the community, and having been established by parents going through the adoption process, the charity is well placed to speak up for birth parents.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) on securing a debate on this important subject as well as the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell) on their contributions. I also congratulate Families in Care, which sounds like it is doing tremendous work to try to overcome the feelings that birth parents have of isolation and being stigmatised and overwhelmed. I would love to talk to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central about what more I can do with that charity. I will set out a little what the law says at the moment before turning to some of our work in this area. I assure her that I am incredibly passionate about the matter and working keenly on it.

The law is clear that, wherever possible, children should remain in the birth family and that families should be given extra support to help keep them together. We are carefully considering the children’s social care review by Josh MacAlister, which talks about early family help and better data as well as some of the other points that the hon. Lady rightly mentioned.

Where a child cannot live with their birth parents, local authorities have a legal duty to give preference to alternative care by family and friends before considering adoption. The decision to put a child forward for adoption should never be taken lightly. The ultimate decision rests with the independent court systems, and courts scrutinise the evidence before them. The hon. Lady rightly mentioned that paramount in the court’s consideration is the welfare of the child, with strong checks and balances in the system. Birth parents are supported during the process by having access to legal representation and the opportunity to refute allegations. I very much recognise what she said about birth parents feeling like they sometimes do not have the chance to do those things.

It is essential that we support birth parents and adopted children. My Department funds the Family Rights Group, of which I am sure the hon. Lady is aware. This week, I met a brilliant employee of it who is a passionate advocate for birth parents. It provides independent legal and other advice to families so that, in its own words,

“wherever possible children can live safely and flourish within their family network”.

Many birth parents of children in care will be grieving over the loss of their child or may need support to process what has happened. Adoption agencies have legal duties to provide support to birth parents. I accept that provision can often be patchy and variable, but those agencies must provide counselling services to birth parents when adoption of a child is being considered. Such counselling must be made available to them at any time throughout the adoption process, including when that support has previously been rejected. When birth parents reject counselling, agencies should offer to set up counselling for them with another agency, should they prefer that. Birth parents must be given information about the implications of adoption. Adoption agencies must explain the process of adoption and the legal implications, and birth parents should also receive written information on the implications.

The wishes of birth parents about future contact must be asked for by adoption agencies so that the court can take them into account on applications for a placement or adoption order. Agencies must also ask birth parents their wishes about the religion and culture of their child so that their views can be considered if the child does go to live with adopters.

Ensuring that adoption agencies are running consistent and high-quality services is a key priority for me and the Government. We published a national adoption strategy in July 2021, and some of our work on regional adoption agencies is to try to test that best practice, including in particular some of the counselling and emotional support that the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for York Central mentioned.

[Rachael Maskell]

I am grateful to the Minister for her response so far, but she will also recognise that, such is the churn of social workers involved in the adoption process, that birth parents often have six or seven social workers over the course of an adoption discussion to the point of adoption. Therefore, they do not get the representation and consistency, which is so important to give them the care the Minister talks about.

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the hon. Lady for that important intervention. Yes, I recognise there is retention and churn in the social care worker system. I am looking at that very closely and am happy to talk to her about it further. Consistency means the ability to build a proper relationship. That means so much in terms of trust, but also in terms of access to the services that we all know are important, because it increases the likelihood of someone actually taking them up.

Part of our adoption strategy includes driving improvement for contact services, which was mentioned. Where ongoing contact with an adopted child is agreed, support for birth parents or family members can help to ensure that the contact is a positive experience for the adopted child. We know that having contact with birth parents is really important for a child’s sense of their past and identity. I spoke this week to birth parents and care-experienced people who talked about the trauma for children of not really understanding where they come from. We are working very hard with regional adoption agency leaders to ensure that contact services provide better support and are a positive experience for all those who are involved, including birth parents.

On top of that, regional adoption agency leaders have established a birth parent reference group. That is really important, because the group will help to shape plans for developing better information for birth parents and family members. It will create resources for other birth parents around letterbox contact, ensuring it is easier to navigate and ensuring that birth parents are involved during the further development of any adoption services who have some of that co-design.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Coutinho]

I would be delighted to, so let me take that away and see what we can do.

[Rachael Maskell]

I am grateful to the Minister for allowing another intervention. The Mockingbird set-up that is used in fostering is another example of a network of support built around foster parents. Could that not also be translated into the adoption process, particularly bearing in mind Rachel de Souza’s report on the family and looking at the more extensive family and the opportunity that that brings?

[Claire Coutinho]

I am very familiar with the Mockingbird programme, which I think is excellent, so I will look at that as well. I also agree with the Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza’s excellent report on family.

Let me bring my comments to a close, despite all the interventions. We have had a very interesting debate. I thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central for securing it. I am particularly committed to this area, as are the Government, and to making sure that it works better for birth parents and adopted children.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I can confirm that work is well under way on exactly that.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The independent review of children’s social care highlighted the cost of the failure of residential care settings—both the financial cost and, most importantly, the cost to children of failed care. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to improve that care and to ensure that we move from a marketised system to a regional system, as suggested?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

As the hon. Lady is aware, we are currently evaluating the three reports issued earlier this year, in particular the independent review of children’s social care. I have been working flat out since I was appointed to this role to make sure we are able to bring forward a response to it with an implementation plan to ensure that all young people in our care system are looked after, but also that there are answers and options to move forward.

Free School Meals and Child Poverty

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention and I definitely agree that universality is the way forward for free school meals.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate. In York in 2021, 25.3% of children were in poverty, and that number will have gone up substantially in the last 12 months. One thing that really struck me about the event that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) is talking about was the stigma that children experienced because they were different from other children. For that reason alone, surely we should have a universal offer of free school meals for children, so that they have the same stature as their peers and are not marked out as a child needing free school meals.

[Kim Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention and will come on to the point about stigma later.

More than 200,000 children are eligible for free school meals but are currently missing out. At my free school meals event with the National Education Union on Tuesday in Parliament, which received cross-party support, we heard some heartbreaking testimonies from youth ambassadors for the End Child Poverty coalition.

Liv, Emilia and Naomi, who have lived experiences of food poverty, spoke passionately about their personal experiences of being singled out in front of their friends and watching their parents skip meals to ensure that they were fed. They spoke about the long-term impact on their mental health, on their relationship with food, and on their responses to the current pressures of the cost of living crisis, and about the trauma response that growing up with such pressures has instilled in them. One said that having free school meals was like having a badge pinned to their blazer that read “Poor.” That stigma often worsens in secondary school and can be incredibly alienating for children struggling to fit in and thrive.

Data from the Child Poverty Action Group has shown that 800,000 children currently living in poverty are not eligible for free school meals, and miss out on holiday support and other benefits. That number is increasing every day, with many families falling into debt with school lunches. Crucially, children are denied a meal if they are more than two weeks in arrears.

On the steps of Downing Street on Tuesday, the new Prime Minister said that

“we have what it takes to tackle those challenges”

and that we can “ride out the storm”, but the energy price guarantee announced this afternoon will not support families already in crisis. They will be paying far more, not less.

A recent report from the Food Foundation revealed that about 2.6 million children live in households that missed meals or struggled to access healthy food. Levels of insecurity in households with children have risen by more than 40% since the start of this year alone. We are one of the richest countries in the world, yet so many low-paid workers, including public sector workers, rely on food banks. Nearly 70% of food bank providers say, however, that they may need to turn people away or shrink the size of emergency rations due to a completely unsustainable surge in demand that will prevent them from feeding the hungriest families this winter.

The Government-commissioned national food strategy, authored by Henry Dimbleby, calls for the extension of free school meals for all under-16-year-olds in households earning under £20,000, to help to tackle the nutritional gap between rich and poor in this country. Children in the most disadvantaged areas are now being diagnosed with Victorian diseases such as rickets, scurvy and scarlet fever—and that was even before the cost of living crisis.

Four councils have rolled out universal free school meals for all primary school children. Southwark pioneered that flagship initiative a decade ago in response to the so-called once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis. The results speak for themselves. Pupils made four to eight weeks’ more progress than expected. The schools have seen a massive improvement in attainment over the last 10 years and have gone from being fourth bottom to more than 90% being rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. Nearly a quarter more children were eating vegetables at lunch time, and there was an 18% reduction in children consuming crisps and soft drinks. Hammersmith and Fulham has seen a 60% increase in secondary school children on free school meals since 2018, and it is now piloting universal free school meals for secondary pupils.

Universal provision contributes to family food security. It improves pupils’ concentration and behaviour. It improves attendance, which is also a key aim of this Government’s Schools Bill. It increases the amount of fruit and vegetables and reduces the amount of sugar and salt consumed by pupils at lunch time. Crucially, it also reduces the stigma that many children who receive free school meals feel when they are singled out from their peers.

Often, stigma and mental health are overlooked in Government policy discussions—poorer children are expected to put up and shut up, and be grateful for their handouts—but the reality is incredibly damaging. It can cause long-term trauma and problems, and makes the means-tested policy far less effective. Yes, universal free school meals will cost. Yes, they should be understood as an investment in our future. However, these are children, and everything we do should allow them to flourish and thrive. Their bright futures should be our priority. We cannot lose sight of the human impact of not feeding our children, or of choosing an arbitrary threshold to decide who deserves to go hungry and who deserves to be fed.

Universality provides far greater opportunities to improve educational attainment across the board and to reverse the ever-growing inequalities. Investing in our children now will be better for everyone in the long term. Prevention is better than cure. Doing nothing now will reduce the productivity of the future workforce. It will put greater pressures on the NHS. It risks a generation suffering from poor mental health and poor physical health, and being trapped in a never-ending cycle of poverty.

[Rachael Maskell]

My hon. Friend is being generous with her time. I very much want York to adopt free school meals for all primary school children, and then to look at rolling that out to secondary school children. However, I also want to ensure that children in my constituency have access to a hot nutritious meal in their stomachs every day through the school holidays. I take it that my hon. Friend will also be campaigning against the school holiday hunger that we still see in our constituencies.

[Kim Johnson]

I thank my good friend for her contribution, and I definitely will be promoting food security during holiday periods. It is not just about children having a hot nutritious meal; in reality, it means so much more. It sets the foundations for improved behaviour and improved attainment. It means better health, better jobs, higher salaries and higher life expectancy—in short, the chance to break the vicious cycle of poverty.

UK food prices have hit the highest levels since 2008. Children are going hungry right now. They simply cannot afford to wait for this Government while they are dragging their feet. The last time the Tories tried to resist helping hungry children, there was public outrage—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I absolutely get the point about stigma, and I know that schools work incredibly hard to overcome it. Free school meal eligibility will be under review, and in this post I look forward to getting into the detail and speaking to stakeholders, schools, parents and children, as I do already in my constituency. I look forward to widening the scope of that.

[Rachael Maskell]

I, too welcome the Minister to her new position. Richard Titmuss famously said that services to the poor are poor services. As we look at that divide, we know that many parents do not claim free school meals because of stigma, so children go hungry and without. Of course, parents often make sacrifices, too. Will she look at the equation again and at how we can bring greater equality into the lives of our young people?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point. As I said, I, like all Members of Parliament, absolutely care about our young people in school and want them to thrive, have great lives and enjoy their school years, and we must ensure that stigma does not exist for them. In my role, I will look at many things, and I am more than happy to look at that further. We do not have plans to extend the universal provision in England, but, as I said, we will continue to keep free school meal eligibility under review to ensure that those meals are supporting those who need it most.

Let us look at some of the detail. We currently have an earnings threshold of £7,400 for families on universal credit, but that does not include income from benefits—those payments are not included—so household incomes can be considerably higher than that threshold without children being excluded from a free school meal. Extending free school meals to all families on universal credit, for example, would carry a significant financial cost, quickly running into billions of pounds, and yet some of those households have incomes exceeding £40,000 a year. Those are clearly not among the most disadvantaged, and other households would have a greater need of our support.

As every family knows, it costs more to put a healthy meal on the table than it did even just a year ago, and it is no different for free school meal provision. We have therefore increased core funding for schools. This year, the free school meals factor in the national funding formula has increased to £470 per pupil to take into account inflation and other cost pressures that schools face. We are also providing extra core funding through the schools supplementary grant, which represents a significant increase of £2.5 billion for the 2022-23 compared with last year. We are also spending £600 million on universal infant free school meals each year as well as about £40 million on delivering free meals to around 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education. In addition to that, we will provide more than £200 million a year for the next three years to deliver healthy food during holiday periods through our holiday activities and food programme. We are also funding breakfast clubs in more than 2,000 schools, and the school fruit and vegetable scheme and Healthy Start vouchers add further support.

The Government are committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to tackling poverty—especially child poverty—and supporting people on lower incomes. There are currently about 1.27 million job vacancies across the UK, and we believe that the best and most sustainable way of tackling child poverty is to ensure that parents get the right sort of help and support to move into work. We know that employment—I am talking primarily about a full-time job—offers the best chance of reducing the risks of poverty. Our multimillion-pound plan for jobs has protected, supported and created jobs, and will continue to help people across the UK to find work and develop skills to progress their careers and increase their earnings.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelly Tolhurst]

Ahead of today, we had already announced a significant package of support for those most in need—I outlined the extra £400. Local authorities also have the household support grant scheme, which is accessible by people who are in need and is an opportunity for those who have fallen through certain gaps to access funding they may require.

We need to invest in home-grown energy and drive reform in the energy market to secure the UK’s supply. Putin’s weaponisation of the energy supply has exposed the UK’s vulnerabilities to the volatility of global markets, coupled with a regulatory framework no longer fit for purpose which is driving up bills and holding back economic growth. A new six-month scheme for businesses and other non-domestic energy users, including public sector organisations like schools, will offer equivalent support to that being provided for consumers. That will protect them from soaring energy costs and provide them with the certainty they need to plan their business. After the initial six-month period, the Government will provide ongoing, focused support for vulnerable industries. There will be a review in three months’ time to consider where that should be targeted to make sure that the most in need get support.

[Rachael Maskell]

Let me bring the Minister back to the debate about free school meals, because that is really important and I want to make sure that we make the most of this time and opportunity. One of the issues that I raised was holiday hunger and the fact that many children go without food during the school holidays, and that still continues. What steps will she take to ensure that all children who experience food poverty get access to a hot meal every day?

Children’s Social Care Workforce

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Sharma. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) for introducing this crucial debate. I am saddened that Westminster Hall is not packed today. After 12 years, we must recognise that families are being failed, as are children, and our social work workforce is being set up to fail. We have around 80,000 children in social care—let us think about that number. If we do not change direction, in 10 years’ time that will be 100,000 children. If we put in the changes needed, we could see that number fall.

The crime is that we know what has to be done. We have had the report of 1,001 critical days. We have had Josh MacAlister’s report for the independent review of children’s social care. Today is the day on which the Minister must commit to pivot the system in order to invest in our young people. We know the trauma that being in care brings to children and families. Our social workers work so hard and are so dedicated. It is one of the hardest jobs—keeping children safe, keeping families together and acting as a corporate parent—but they are fighting a fire that will not go out.

We all know the constituency cases: the desperate situation where social workers are trying to keep a family together, but they remove a child and we question whether that was the right decision. It is hard. Perhaps parents can no longer cope because their charge is at significant risk of harm to themselves or others because they are so traumatised. That is the daily experience that social workers have to deal with. It is not just the shared pressure they are under, because of the volume of unsafe case work—they have so much of it and do not have the resources they need—but the emotional stress of the job that takes its toll That is why we need to look after our social workers and ensure that they have the support they need, because they want to break the cycles. They want to ensure that families are given that chance in life to stay together and have the support they need.

The independent review of children’s social care was an important moment. I really do thank Josh MacAlister and his team for the work that they did. They had so many children, young people and families with lived experience, and care-experienced people, leading that work, which is crucial to setting the path for the future. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston said, we need proper support for people who are newly qualified, with the five-year early career framework ensuring that people are working under supervision, with the opportunity learn, gain competencies, get knowledge and skills and focus on rebuilding families with the right interventions, which is a central part of Josh MacAlister’s report. They should not make those really difficult decisions until they have that experience. He suggests working with family helpers, bringing together early help and a child in need of support.

There should a multidisciplinary team wrapped around that, as opposed to pulling the child in so many different directions. There should be consistency in support around the child. As that practitioner gains experience to become an expert practitioner, there is a career path for them to gain and use that knowledge, so that they can have those sensitive conversations and deal with challenging situations. They analyse all the information and their experience in order to make the right decisions on behalf of a child and their family, and to deal with the courts. An observation that my colleagues in York have made is that dealing with the courts is challenging for social workers. We need to ensure that there is good training for judges, who are often quite removed from the real experiences of those social workers or the children for whom they are advocating. We need to look at the court system as well. We must ensure that we provide good support.

I say to the Minister that, although there is much churn in his party at the moment, we have to invest in these people. We have got to ensure that they get decent pay and recognition for the work that they do, rewarding the skills that they have and doing such an important job. Josh MacAlister’s report talks about a national pay framework, which is really important for the profession to stop the constant churn as social workers move to another authority because they pay that little bit more. That is destabilising the relationship with the child. The child should be central to all of this. We should ensure that there is a proper framework. In the NHS, we call it Agenda for Change and it is a good system of job evaluation that has lasted for 20 years, showing that it is sustainable as a mechanism for a pay and progression system.

I hope that the Minister looks at Agenda for Change and considers how it can be applied to social workers across the board, to ensure that caseloads are safe, which means that we need more capacity in the system. We need more social workers to carry out this crucial role and to get on top of the number of children who are at risk or who are presenting a need. If make an injection of funding, we can ensure that the eventual financial outcome will be far, far less. Fiscally it is a smart thing to do to invest at this point, because Josh MacAlister says in his report that it would mean that instead of having 100,000 children in care, that figure would go down to 50,000 children in care in 10 years’ time, which is certainly something we should fight for.

I have to agree with Josh MacAlister when he refers in his report to the “broken market” around residential care. I do not know whether the Minister heard the “File on 4” programme on BBC Radio 4 about this issue, but it was truly shocking; if he has not heard it already, I recommend that he listens to it. The programme is about the experience that children have in residential care. Profiteering from vulnerable children? It is disgraceful that that happens. We have to consider how we bring that care closer to the child, closer to the family and ensure that they both get the support they need; rather than making money out of these vulnerable children, we should invest in them and their future.

We must also invest in our social workers, supporting them to achieve their very best and to keep them safe. That is what we want to see, wrapping around them a multi-disciplinary team, including mental health services, education and even services related to play. Instead of services fighting against each other, they should work together.

What came out of Josh McAlister’s report was a view that every child or young person must be in a safe, stable and loving environment. That is not the experience of children today, but we must make it the ambition. We do not have time to waste; these are lives that are vulnerable right now.

Consequently, I trust that the Minister will take that report and will ensure that we get a response to it. I do not know what timescale the Minister is thinking of; perhaps he can tell us today, because these children cannot wait—and Labour Members certainly cannot wait either.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

The independent review comes as a package and holds together as such. Is the Minister committing that the Government will accept the package and make the level of investment that the review calls for?

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

I thank the hon. Member for her question. When we come to the implementation board, those are exactly the things we will discuss and I share the view that there is a lot of good stuff in that report, and I would like to see us do as much as possible. That will obviously come when the board meets, and those are things that we will discuss. I can promise that we will look seriously at all the recommendations that have been made there before making any decision. That is something that certainly want to put across as the Minister. It is a passion that I equally share, and I will do my best to make sure that we have the best reform possible based on the information and resources available to us.

Some of the ideas we are considering in the review include regional staff banks, national pay scales and memorandums of understanding to help to reduce the cost of agency social work, which I agree is a problem and something that needs to be addressed. As my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester set out on the day of publication of the independent review,

“Providing more decisive child protection relies on the knowledge and skills”—[Official Report, 23 May 2022; Vol. 715, c. 33]

of all those in the workforce, and in particular our child and family social workers. That is why we are keen to support the principle of the review’s proposed early career framework.

We intend to set out plans to refocus the support that social workers receive early on, when the Government publish their implementation strategy later this year. The plans will have a particular emphasis on child protection, given the challenging nature of that work. I am particularly delighted to share with the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston that yesterday I signed off £250,000 of improvement funding for St Helens and the Liverpool city region. That will go towards a staff bank pilot, with the ultimate aim of reducing the region’s reliance on agencies.

It is not right that social workers feel their work is undervalued and overlooked. It saddens me to think that those working to protect our most vulnerable children are stigmatised in such a way. Unfortunately, the public only hear about social workers when something goes terribly wrong. They do not hear about the hundreds of thousands of cases where children and parents are empowered and supported to create a better life. Those are the stories that we should hear continually, to remind us of the crucial role that social workers play in protecting the lives of vulnerable children.

Importantly, it is because most social workers do their jobs so well that we are able to overlook them in such a way. That is a national scandal, because dedicated social workers are essential to keeping children safe. It is impossible to quantify the number of children’s lives that social workers have saved, the number of families that they have helped or the harm that they have prevented. When children are in need, social workers work hard on their behalf to ensure that they receive the love and care they deserve. When families are in awful situations and children are in danger, social workers help to make things better. When a family is able to stay together, a social worker is behind the scenes helping to make that happen. Throughout the pandemic, social workers have continued to meet families in person, helping to turn lives around. That is why the Government have invested heavily in training and support for child and family social workers, and will continue to do so.

The quality of a work environment is key to recruitment and retention, including effective professional supervision, wider support and case work levels. Our programme seeks to address a number of those points directly. We are supporting the recruitment of social workers through our investment in initial education and our fast-track programmes. Our investment in continued professional development programmes has a leadership focus, precisely because there is such a strong relationship between leadership, retention and quality.

There is great practice out there, with local authorities driving down agency rates and stabilising their workforces. We see the fruits of everyone’s labour in the number of child and family social workers increasing every year, up 14% from the number in 2017 to 32,500 in 2021. Average case load numbers have fallen from 17.8% in 2017 to 16.3% in 2021, something that we continue to build on.

We recognise that that may not be the picture that some local authorities are seeing on the ground. We are working closely with local authorities, using central programmes and funding to respond to their needs. Informed by the recommendations in “The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care” and the national panel review, we are aiming to stabilise and strengthen children’s social care as we transition out of the pandemic. We want the best possible outcomes for children and young people and to provide a strong foundation for longer term reform.

In addition to our £50 million investment every year in social worker initial education and professional development programmes, the Government have set up a brand-new regulator just for social workers. It is called Social Work England and has been running since 2019. Social Work England’s role as a specialist regulator for social workers is a fundamental part of our reforms to improve the quality of social work practice. Social Work England ensures that people who have a social worker receive the best possible support whenever they might need it in life. Its regulatory framework allows the organisation to adapt to emerging opportunities, challenges and best practice.

We introduced clear post-qualifying standards in 2017 to strengthen the social care system and improve social work practice and safeguarding across the country. They set out the knowledge and skills expected of child and family social workers. We remain committed to assessment and accreditation as key elements of improving children’s social care. We also continue to engage and collaborate with stakeholders and subject experts as we develop the long-term future of post-qualification training and development for child and family social workers.

This year, local authorities have access to more than £54 billion in core spending power to deliver their services, including those for children and young people. That is £3.7 billion more than in 2021-22. It is right that councils should be able to make spending decisions based on their local needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

I thank the hon. Member for his point, and I agree there are considerable pressures on local authorities. The hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston mentioned agency rates earlier, and the spiralling cost of those. What the Government believe—and I have spoken with the LGA about this—is that the early intervention in some of the things that we are looking at putting in place, and this implementation, will help us to cut some of those costs. I fully recognise that there are significant challenges at the moment, but I hope that what we are doing will drive down some of those costs for local authorities and allow us to provide them with the support that I accept local authorities certainly need.

[Rachael Maskell]

On a similar theme, there has been a real increase in demand for services. Many of the figures the Minister gave predate the pandemic, and after the pandemic we have seen a real spike in demand for children’s services. How is the Minister compensating that with the investment in local authorities?

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

Coming out of the pandemic, we face significant challenges in the workforce across the country, not just in the social care sector. Regarding funding, as I said, that is why the implementation board will be so important, because these are the things that we really need to focus on. I can assure the hon. Member that this is something that I do take seriously, and we will look at the points she raised as part of this review.

I am enormously grateful for the time we have had today, and to the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston for bringing this debate. This is a subject I share a passion for, and I hope the steps we have taken underline the importance of this and our commitment to getting this implementation done. I hope the pace at which we move towards that goal reflects the importance of the issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The Church of England and the Catholic Church have been partners on the journey of the White Paper. They are already making ambitious plans to deliver what we all want to see—great schools where children get a great education in the classroom wherever they live in the country.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

When a child experiences deep trauma, it can escalate their vulnerability and can display itself in many ways, including harm to themselves and others. Early intervention is key, but when residential placements are required, it is inexcusable when there are no places available locally or nationally. How will the Secretary of State rectify that as a matter of urgency?

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question; we have spoken about the matter privately. As she knows, local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure sufficient provision in their area to meet the needs of children in their care. The example that she presents should not have happened. The Government are supporting local authorities by providing £259 million of additional funding to expand their residential provision of both secure and open children’s homes. That will provide more safe homes for vulnerable children.

Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I am pleased to see the improvements made in Stoke-on-Trent. My hon. Friend is absolutely right when he says that the Department for Education and local authorities cannot do this alone; they need other agencies and partners to be involved, and not just when it comes to safeguarding, although that is hugely important. We need the multi-agency approach, with all arms of the state, and indeed local businesses, communities and the voluntary sector, pulling together to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children in our country.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I truly welcome the report and thank Josh MacAlister for the work that he and his team have done on the review. The social cost of adverse outcomes reaches £23 billion a year, yet the recommendations looked at £2.6 billion over a five-year implementation period. They included bringing in regional care co-operatives, as has happened with adoption and permanency in the regional adoption agencies. Will the Minister ensure that the report is implemented in full—not bits picked out of it—and that the funding will be there?

[Will Quince]

I cannot commit to implementing the entire report in full; there are more than 80 recommendations and it is right that we take it away, stress-test it, consider all the aspects of the proposals and their consequences, intended and otherwise, and speak with the sector and stakeholders. I recognise the level of ambition and I support huge aspects of the review.

Funding is important, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is as committed as I am to ensuring that all children are given an equal chance to succeed by supporting the most vulnerable in our society. Look at the evidence from “The Case for Change”, which set out the initial findings of the care review: more than £2 billion into children’s social care; £695 million into the supporting families programme, a 40% increase which I know the hon. Lady will welcome; £259 million into building new children’s homes, secure and open; and the £300 million investment in family hubs in half the local authorities in our country.

Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on Millie’s Mark, and of course child safety in nurseries is vital and non-negotiable. I am grateful to her for bringing that accreditation to the House’s attention.

As I was saying, where families need additional help we have expanded the Supporting Families programme so that those 300,000 families with more complex needs can work with a key worker to help to resolve problems.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I will just make a bit more headway, then I will take the hon. Lady’s intervention with pleasure.

To improve the lives and outcomes of children with a social worker, we need to make fundamental changes to the current system. I look forward to seeing the recommendations from the independent review of children’s social care—the MacAlister review—which will be published in the coming weeks. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve outcomes for children and families. This Government are acutely aware of how important childcare is to both children and their mums and dads. In each of the past three years we have spent in excess of £3.5 billion a year on our early education entitlements, and we will continue to support families with their childcare costs. At the spending review last October we announced additional funding for early years entitlements worth £160 million in 2022-23, £180 million in 2023-24 and £170 million in 2024-25 compared with the 2021-22 financial year.

Providing quality childcare is vital for children to develop from the earliest opportunity, but there is another point to all this. We know that women are the most likely to shoulder high childcare costs. The aim of the Government’s universal credit childcare offer is to support parents for whom paid childcare is a barrier to work to overcome that barrier. This works alongside tax-free childcare, helping parents return to work and making sure it pays to work. For every £8 that parents pay into their childcare account, we add £2, up to a maximum of £2,000, in top-up per year for each child up to the age of 11, and up to £4,000 per disabled child until they are 17. Overall, the Government have spent more than £4 billion on childcare each year for the past five years in the United Kingdom through childcare offers led by the Department for Education, tax-free childcare and employer-supported childcare. Addressing the issue means that women can, if they wish, go back to their careers. That is fair to them and it is good for business and the economy.

Our long-term economic success will turn on our ability to nurture and utilise talent, including that of new mothers. Human potential—human capital—is the most important resource on earth. To steal a phrase from my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the Chair of the Education Committee, we are determined to build a skills-rich economy. We are committed to delivering those skills through massive investment in and reforms to skills and further education provision.

We have already embarked on revolutionising the post-16 education sector, transforming apprenticeships, driving up quality and better meeting the skills needs of employers through more flexible training models. We have launched T-levels, boosting access to high-quality technical education for thousands of young people, and, of course, creating our skilled workforce of the future. I pledge to the House that I will make T-levels as famous as A-levels—watch this space. In the previous parliamentary Session, we successfully passed the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 to do just that. That Act, alongside our wider reforms, including an additional £3.8 billion investment in skills over this Parliament, rightly places employers at the heart of the skills system, supporting our ambition for everyone to be able to access the training that they need to move into highly skilled jobs. There is, of course, a crucial role for our universities in making sure that our country remains the best place in which to grow up and, given the link to future earnings and opportunities, to grow old.

We will bring forward further legislation through a higher education reform Bill to ensure that our post-18 education system promotes real social mobility, is financially sustainable and will support people to get the skills they need to meet their career aspirations and help grow the economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention and have a couple of things to say in response. First, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will address this, but I know that his priority—his laser-like focus—is on dealing with the backlog. There is also investment in Cumbria and the University of Cumbria for clinical training and the needs of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents.

As I said at the start of my speech, I am focused on delivery. I am passionate in my belief that performance data is a key lever to drive rapid improvement through complex systems, whether in education or in health. On transparency, as we did with the vaccine we will do the same again with education and health. I have committed to publishing a delivery plan setting out what we will achieve and a performance dashboard showing progress so that the House and the country can hold us to account. I have already written to all schools stating that we will publish data on the uptake of the national tutoring programme this summer. Many schools have helpfully given us access to their attendance data, and I am conducting a trial over the coming weeks to share that data back in a way that prompts helpful actions in schools and local authorities.

The spirit with which our education sector responded to the pandemic demonstrated why this is the best country to grow up in.

[Rachael Maskell]

The Secretary of State is talking about the best place for young people to grow up; will he explain why not a single placement of special provision for children at risk is available throughout the country, as my constituent is experiencing right now?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. That is partly why the MacAlister review of children’s social care is so important. I shall say more on that in the coming weeks.

Let me return to praising the incredible spirit of our education frontline: those brilliant teachers, school leaders and, of course, support staff—we must never forget the support staff—demonstrated why this is the best country to grow up in. We see that spirit across our public and private sector, including, of course, in the work of the national health service with our great vaccine companies, which has led the way in protecting lives and livelihoods in the battle against covid. Thanks to the astonishing roll-out of the vaccine and booster programmes, we were the first European nation to protect half our population with at least one dose and, thanks to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the first major European nation to boost half our population, too.

Following the unprecedented challenges placed on the NHS by covid, we will spend more than £8 billion from 2022-23 to 2024-25, supported by the revenue from the health and social care levy, to clear the covid elective backlogs. But we must be honest: our NHS faces long-term challenges too, including an ageing population and people increasing living with multiple long-term conditions. At this critical moment, we must seize the opportunity to put our healthcare system on a more sustainable path for the future, while meeting the immediate urgent recovery challenges. The Health and Care Act 2022 has created the structures for that sustainable future.

At the same time, as my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary will outline later, we will publish draft legislation to reform the Mental Health Act so that patients suffering from mental health conditions have greater control over their treatment and receive the dignity and respect that they deserve. I know that the NHS is an institution that makes people proud to be British. I and this entire Government share that sentiment, which is why we are safeguarding its sustainable future.

In closing, this was a Queen’s Speech filled with substantial policies, not least those that give young people the education they need to succeed in life; policies that will provide more rungs on the ladder of opportunity, and opportunity for older people who want a chance to learn and retrain; policies that put skills at the heart of our economy to unleash its potential; policies that back our public services so that they can deliver what our country needs; policies that sustain the truth that this is the best place in the world to grow up and grow old.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I can certainly give my hon. Friend the assurance that we will reach out to them.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Parents are battling and children are struggling every day in York, in that tug of war between the services, the available funding and the available practitioners. I was disappointed that the proposals do not contain a workforce plan covering the comprehensive range of services needed, including speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychological services and CAMHS. In the consultation, can the Secretary of State put a focus on workforce planning and ensure that at the end of that consultation, a workforce plan is published alongside the Government response?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s characteristically thoughtful question. We made a commitment in the Green Paper, and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has also made this commitment, to ensure the workforce provision is adequate. The best way to ensure that is through the transparency of a local data dashboard so people can see their child has consistency of support.