Committee stage in the Lords
Lords Committee debated virtual school heads, care-leaver support (Staying Put, Staying Close, homelessness priority, financial literacy, health), sibling and family relationships, foster care strategy and national register, and the adoption and special guardianship support fund.
L(What is the effect of "and others" at the end of Clause 6(2) — is it merely a peg for subsection (3), or does it carry wider implications? And require local authorities to publish an annual account of the steps taken to promote educational achievement for children in need and kinship care, so that the electorate can scrutinise and push for improvement.My Lords, I will also speak to my other amendments in this group. Amendment 77 just asks the question: what is the effect of “and others” at the end of Clause 6(2)? Is it just to enable the insertion of Clause 6(3) or does it have wider implications that I have not noticed? Amendment 78 is to encourage good and improving practice by making sure that what is being done is published so that it can be assessed and criticised by the local electorate, and there can be a stimulus for doing better. Amendment 81 enables the Secretary of State to enlarge on that by specifying the way in which local authorities should report on the educational achievements of children in need of or in kinship care—again, with the objective of making sure that the information is out there against which the local authority will wish to report improvements. I beg to move.
Local authorities would warmly welcome these amendments: making education success stories visible is itself a driver for improvement, and that logic applies equally to adopted children and to career and employment outcomes — and it is time to review the current and future role of virtual education and ensure it is properly funded.My Lords, I support strongly this group of amendments. Does the Minister agree that local authorities would very much welcome the positive effects of these constructive amendments? Thereby, local authority education success stories would become more visible and, as my noble friend Lord Lucas has already implied, that visibility in itself would clearly assist further improvement. As indicated in Amendments 78, 79 and 80, this would apply to the educational achievements of children in need or in kinship care, as it also should to all previously looked-after children who were adopted. As correctly advocated in Amendment 80, career and employment opportunities ought to be included as part of educational achievement. Taking into account the increasing benefits from virtual education, I am sure that the Minister will concur as well that, in these and other respects, and as recommended in Amendment 83, the Secretary of State should equally now review the current and future role and remit of virtual education, so that it can become properly funded.
Career and employment must be counted as part of educational achievement. There are 354,000 young unemployed NEETs actively seeking work and 569,000 economically inactive; 41% of care leavers aged 19–21 are NEET; 66% of young people in Feltham YOI and 25% of the adult prison population were in care. ThinkForward proves it can be done: 85% of 14–16 year-olds showed improved attendance; 96% of 17–18 year-olds moved into education, employment or training. Publish NEET tables for every school, bring employers in early, and make this a statutory requirement.My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 80, which “seeks to include career and employment opportunities as a part of educational achievement”. I have spoken many times in this Chamber, and will probably do so again, about the need to ensure that we an educational system that prevents young people becoming NEET. I will share some statistics with noble Lords. There are 354,000 young people who are unemployed and actually seeking work who are NEET, and 569,000 who are economically inactive and not seeking work. According to the Department for Education’s 2025 report, 41% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 were deemed to be NEET. I add to this that I discovered recently that 66% of young people in Feltham young offender institution and 25% of the adult prison population had been in care. I have no doubt that these figures will ring alarm bells for all of us, and so they should, so what can we do about them? The main factors that contribute to these figures—the main reason why these young people are in the position they are and NEET—are educational disruption; poor mental health and emotional well-being; lack of stable housing; limited support networks; stigma and discrimination by employers for those young people who have been in care; and inadequate transition planning when they move from education to employment. It is this last point that I will focus on. I hope that all noble Lords, including the Minister, will agree that we must have a system that prepares all young people, in particular those who have been or continue to be in care, to make an effective transition from education to work. My first question is: can the Minister tell us what tailored and individual careers advice and coaching the Bill will put in place, working with the DWP and all its great partners, to ensure that young people get the service they need? How will the Bill bring employers into the lives of young people at a much earlier stage and dispel the negative assessment they make which keeps these y…
Children in care average an Attainment 8 score less than half that of all pupils; only 14% go to university versus 47% nationally; one in three becomes homeless in their first two years out of care; 52% have a criminal conviction by 24. One line in this Bill could achieve so much.My Lords, I support Amendment 79 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. Following the statistical barrage from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, I shall give some more. According to the Drive Forward Foundation, children in care on average achieve an Attainment 8 score that is less than half of the overall pupil population. Just 14% of care leavers go on to university, compared with 47% of all young people. Some 22% of care leavers say that they always or often feel lonely, compared with 10% of all young people, and 15% of care leavers report that they do not have a good friend, compared with 5% of all adults. One in three care leavers becomes homeless in the first two years after they leave care, and 52% of children in care have a criminal conviction by the age of 24, compared with 13% of non-care-experienced children. One line in the Bill could achieve so much.
Clause 6 extends virtual school head duties without yet having clear evidence of impact. The 2024 interim evaluation expressly said it was not an effectiveness trial. The policy document overstates the findings — attendance trends could reflect other factors, so we risk correlation not causation. Fill the evidence gap on both impact and resources before expanding VSHs further.My Lords, my Amendment 83 seeks to address what is currently a series of gaps in the information that we have about the effectiveness of the virtual school head role. Clause 6 extends the statutory duties of the VSH role to children with a social worker and children in kinship care. The question is whether it needs to be put on a statutory footing and what resources are necessary to implement it effectively. As I understand it, we do not yet have the evidence that confirms the positive impact of that role, nor the emergence of value for money. I take your Lordships to the interim evaluation, which was published in 2024. On page 11, it states: “The evaluation of Phase Two follows a broadly cyclical pattern of data collection and analysis, alongside ongoing analysis of secondary national datasets … We assumed that there would not be only one way of providing effective support and that the aim at this stage was to support shared learning about potentially effective practice, rather than to conduct an effectiveness trial … The final report for this evaluation … will test whether there are any early signs of progress at aggregate level in attendance, persistent absence, suspension and permanent exclusion”. I suggest to the Minister that the policy document for the Bill seems to overstate the impact. That policy document says: “The evaluation of the extension shows early signs of improved educational outcomes … with several local authorities reporting improved attendance, reduced exclusions and enhanced collaboration between education and social care services”. I am concerned that trends in attendance could be influenced by a range of other factors apart from the presence of the VSH. We therefore possibly have correlation rather than causation. I may have misunderstood things, but can the Minister please correct me if I am wrong? I hope the Minister will look sympathetically at my amendment. It seeks to fill the evidence gap, both in terms of impact and in terms of resour…
Boarding school placements are a dramatically underutilised tool for children in kinship care. Norfolk's longitudinal study of 52 vulnerable children found 33 came off the risk register entirely; 21% achieved GCSE passes in maths and English versus 17.5% nationally for looked-after children; and average costs of £11,000–£35,000 compare with £56,000 for a standard looked-after placement. The DfE's own report on this was quietly removed from the website — put it back and use these opportunities.My Lords, my Amendment 82 would provide further opportunities for children in kinship care to have access to boarding school places where appropriate. The Government should be applauded for their commitment to raising the profile of kinship care as a vital part of the ecosystem for children from broken families. As we heard earlier in the week from the noble Lord, Lord Russell, there are more than 150,000 children in kinship care in England. Kinship carers are unsung heroes, without whom it would be almost inevitable that the care system would buckle. For most of Part 1 of the Bill, I have taken a back seat as I do not have direct expertise in the many complex areas that it seeks to tackle. However, for this proposal I was the Minister responsible for boarding schools, both state and private, when at the DfE. Noble Lords participating in the Bill will know what a huge task confronts kinship carers when taking on children, more often than not from broken homes and carrying the emotional scars of the unhappiness that has emanated from this breakdown. We have heard how the level of support for kinship carers is patchy at best and often almost non-existent. For many potential kinship carers the prospect will simply be too daunting, even if they might be the best solution in a given set of circumstances. That is why I am so keen to give much more oxygen to the prospect of offering boarding school places to children in kinship care. Where it works for the child—and, of course, this is not always the case—it can provide a vital partnership to the carer in the upbringing of the child. At the simplest level, the day-to-day caring responsibilities for the kinship carer are reduced to around 16 weeks a year from 52 when boarding school is providing a home for the balance of the time. I believe it is a dramatically underutilised resource. There is an unexplained squeamishness across many directors of children’s services to use it more. However, when I was the Minister in the ar…
A 2023 University of Nottingham study commissioned by the Royal National Children's SpringBoard Foundation found that vulnerable children in boarding schools are four times more likely to achieve good GCSEs in English and maths and five times more likely to succeed at A-level; for every 100 children, the economic return on investment is approximately £2.75 million. Kinship carers who know a child will be safe and cared for in the state boarding sector are far more likely to step forward.My Lords, I was pleased to be asked to speak to Amendment 82 by my noble friend Lord Farmer, who is unfortunately not able to be here today. As well as the evidence I will refer to, I was in your Lordships’ House back in 2014 when my noble friend gave his maiden speech. A Conservative Party treasurer perhaps brings a certain stereotype to mind. However, you could have heard a pin drop, as a globally successful metals trader spoke of being a young teenager in a chaotic home with an alcoholic single mother. But he went to the boarding house at the state-run Wantage Grammar School. It rescued him. It made me reflect on the role of boarding schools. I was born and bred in Oakham and I have had to deal for many years with the annoyance of, “You’re from Oakham? So you went to Oakham School, then?” “No”, I reply, “there is a state comprehensive as well in the town, called Catmose College”—which was rated “outstanding” in every category in an Ofsted inspection in 2024, if noble Lords will forgive the shoutout for my state school. This testimony by my noble friend is supported by the 2023 study by the University of Nottingham’s School of Education, commissioned by the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation, which found that children in or on the edge of care who attend state boarding or independent schools experience significant educational and financial benefits. They are four times more likely to achieve good GCSE passes in English and maths and five times more likely to pursue and succeed in A-levels, leading often to higher education. The study estimates that, for every 100 children attending boarding schools, lower social care costs and increased future earnings mean there is an economic return on investment of approximately £2.75 million. The report stated that, when vulnerable children in boarding schools were interviewed, they said such opportunities were life-changing. This amendment would also make it significantly easier, as my noble friend Lord Agnew ou…
Liverpool College accepted looked-after children under an agreement with the local authority and the results were spectacular — a model that should be welcomed regardless of party politics. And on virtual school heads: Liverpool's director of education once declared himself the virtual parent of every child in care, set up a monthly steering committee of children themselves, and the results were remarkable. Information transparency drives improvement.My Lords, we have no amendments in this group, but we are very sympathetic to them. When you look at all the statistics for children in care, your heart goes out to those young people, and we should do everything humanly possible to help them, develop them, encourage them—and any other adjective you can think of. I will deal with a few of the amendments. First, I want to deal with the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. He may not know Liverpool College, but it is a very successful independent school with a dynamic head teacher, a Dutch American who came to England and did two things. First, he made Liverpool College an academy, and then he decided to make a boarding facility available. He came to an agreement with the local authority that he would offer a percentage of the places to children in care. The results have been spectacular. It is a model that should not be shunned for party-political reasons—“We are not in favour of independent schools or boarding schools”—but should be welcomed, embraced and encouraged. Secondly, I want to make a point about Amendment 83, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham. Again from personal experience, not only did we create a virtual school in Liverpool, but the then director of education, Colin Hilton, said, “I am going to be the virtual parent of these children”. He set up a steering committee of children in care in the local authority and he met with them once a month to hear their issues and their problems. Some might think this was flag waving, but, by taking on that role, he nailed his colours and the colours of the local authority to the mast, and again the results were amazing. I am in favour of all sorts of information being made available, because it is only by getting information that you know what you have to do and how you can achieve it. Surprisingly, I am the chair of Liverpool’s education, employment and training scrutiny committee; the Labour authority has made a Lib Dem the chair of two of its se…
Why are adopted children excluded from Clause 6? Almost half of adoptive parents surveyed in Adoption UK's 2024 Adoption Barometer had sought advice from their local virtual school head, yet adopted children are not included in the Bill's new extended duties. Confirm either that they will be included or explain why not. And the NEET figures are alarming: 923,000 16–24 year-olds — 12.5% — were not in education, employment or training in early 2025.My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 79, in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, and Amendment 80, in the name of my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott. While we are of course positive towards efforts that support children with a social worker, those currently and previously looked after and those in kinship care, we question why adopted children are excluded from His Majesty’s Government’s plans to strengthen the role of the virtual school head. Our Amendment 79 would clarify the role of the virtual school head to ensure that those children in the care of the local authority who are then adopted receive the same support as children with a social worker or those in kinship care. Section 23ZZA of the Children Act 1989 puts a duty on local authorities to “make advice and information available in accordance with this section for the purpose of promoting the educational achievement of each relevant child educated in their area”. Clause 6 of the Bill introduces a duty on a local authority to take “such steps as it considers appropriate”, which is a much broader role but one that currently does not appear to include adopted children. As the helpful briefing from Adoption UK sets out, almost half of adoptive parents surveyed for its 2024 Adoption Barometer had sought advice from their local virtual school in the preceding year. The report highlighted the variability in support that they received and the value they placed on the advocacy that a virtual school head could provide with their child’s school. Their exclusion from the Bill appears inconsistent, and we would be grateful if the Minister could confirm either that adopted children will be included or, if they will not be, why not. Amendment 80 seeks to include career and employment opportunities for children as part of educational achievement. The number of young people who are unable to find employment or further training when they finish their education is al…
Clause 6 confers statutory duties on local authorities to promote educational achievement for children with a social worker and children in kinship care, discharged by virtual school heads who will have strategic oversight — improving visibility, reducing school and placement instability. Local authorities already have a duty under Section 23ZZA of the Children Act 1989 for previously looked-after children including adopted children, and that duty's flexibility covers individual circumstances. We will update statutory guidance to strengthen reporting on strategies for all these groups and to reinforce practice for adopted children. Amendments to place further statutory reporting duties are not necessary, but we commit to keeping relevant Peers informed when guidance and evaluations are published.I thank noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions to this important area of the Bill. I think, hand on heart, we all know that children who need a social worker and children in kinship care experience significant difficulties. Many of them have poorer educational outcomes than their peers as a result, across all key stages. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, is absolutely right that it is important that everyone shares their experience. In Leeds, we always made sure that the scrutiny of children’s services was held by an opposition member; that seems to make absolute sense. We all want the best for these young people, and we must make sure that every area is fully scrutinised. Clause 6 aims to confer statutory duties on local authorities to promote the educational achievement of such children, increasing their visibility, as we have heard from many noble Lords, and ensuring that they receive consistent expert support to improve their outcomes. In practice, these duties will be discharged by the virtual school head, who will have strategic oversight of the outcomes of these children, raising awareness and improving visibility of their needs—for example, through the delivery of training to schools in effective strategies for improving outcomes. We have just received more information about why this information is so important. For example, it will mean having a real understanding of the numbers of young people who experience school instability, placement instability or social work instability—all of which contribute to their experience in learning and their ability to achieve going forward. As well as this, virtual school heads will have a duty to provide information and advice, upon request, to kinship carers with special guardianship or child arrangements orders, regardless of whether their child spent time in care. We know that virtual heads were first introduced on a non-statutory basis, and we recognise the need for a much stronger basis. I echo the noble Earl, Lor…
- Will the Minister commit to reporting back to Parliament on the outcome of the review and evaluation?
I am very grateful for the comprehensive and courteous way that the Minister has responded to the amendments. Can she comment on the need, as I see it, for some sort of report back to Parliament?
- The accountability routes already in place — Ofsted inspections and updated statutory guidance — are the right vehicles; adding a separate reporting duty to virtual school heads would be an onerous additional task. The safeguards are sufficient.
With all this work, I believe it is important that we focus on the job in hand through the route of accountability and the local authorities, and do not give virtual school heads yet another onerous task to do. I believe that enough safeguards are in place and enough ways that the outcomes can be reviewed, so I do not believe that this is necessary at this time. I was going to say that I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments, based on the fact that this is work in progress. We all know the significance of this area and the contribution that so many people make to it. We are opening up an exciting new chapter to make sure that the work that happens is accountable and transparent, and that more people are aware of what needs to be done and how these young people can be helped going forward.
- Will the Minister give a heads-up to all Peers who have spoken in this debate when the evaluation and statutory guidance are published?
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for what I thought was a really satisfactory set of responses to these amendments, and I thank her for that. Will she commit, when the evaluation and the statutory guidance are published, to giving a heads-up to those noble Lords who have expressed an interest in this area during this debate?
- Given the comments received so far, I rather doubt I would have any other option.
I have a feeling that I would not have any other option, given the comments I have received to date.
- Please also have a quiet word with colleagues responsible for the Employment Rights Bill: when an employer takes on someone with a care background knowing it will be challenging, the current Bill's provisions make that more risky and difficult — the rules need to be calibrated so employers can take a chance on someone and have time to bring them through. And encourage local authorities to use boarding schools where appropriate, tracking performance systematically so schools and authorities learn from one another.
I shall be very grateful for that. I hope the Minister will also have a quiet word in the ear of her colleagues responsible for the Employment Rights Bill, referring to the speech of my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott in particular. When an employer wants to take on someone who has a history in care, they know that this may be a difficult experience for them. As it is at the moment, the Employment Rights Bill makes that much more dangerous and difficult. It is a matter of casting the rules right, but the Government have not got there yet. This is really important in making sure that children from a care background can find their way into employment, that an employer can take on someone they know is going to be difficult and have time to bring them through, and that the regulations are set right to make that happen. I encourage the Government to encourage local authorities to use boarding schools where this is appropriate. As my noble friend Lord Agnew said, this is something that can save money and make for a better outcome for the right children. I ask that, where this is done, we track performance. We ought to build up, not just as one experiment but as a routine, a history of how these children have done with that experience, so that we can all learn who it works for and how it works best, and the schools concerned can learn from each other how to do better. There is a real wish in the independent sector to be part of this, and I very much hope it will be included. I thank the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Bill extends Staying Close support only to young people in residential care up to age 25, not Staying Put for those in foster care — creating a two-tier system. Yesterday's spending review set aside £555 million from the Transformation Fund for children's social care reform and over £560 million in capital investment. That offers a real opportunity to extend Staying Put entitlement to age 25 with proper funding.My Lords, I am pleased to introduce this group of amendments, half of which are in my name. Before I go on to them, I will say a word about yesterday’s spending review. I apologise that I could not be here for my noble friend Lord Livermore’s session, just before we started the Bill. There was significant spend announced yesterday on wider children’s social care. The review stated: “This settlement will improve support for England’s most vulnerable children and young people by setting aside £555 million over the SR period from the Transformation Fund for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government … and DfE, as well as total capital investment of over £560 million to reform the children’s social care system and support the refurbishment and expansion of the children’s homes estate. This will help more children and families stay safely together, expand support for care leavers and fix the broken care market”. It obviously remains to be seen how that will shake down, but I think it is a very promising start and a real indication of how seriously the Government view the current situation as far as the children’s social care sector is concerned. In its present form, the Bill extends Staying Close support only to young people up to the age of 25—that is for any relevant child in residential care—but not Staying Put support for those former relevant children who are living in foster care. The increased support that the Bill provides for care leavers is welcome, but it risks creating a two-tier system for care leavers in residential and foster care. More needs to be done for young people in foster care who want to remain with their foster family beyond the age of 21. The amendments in my name in this group seek to extend entitlement up to the age of 25, with proper funding. I suggest that the figures I have just quoted would be a suitable source for at least part of that.
The ONS shows the average age a child leaves the family home is now 24. The state must provide equivalent support. About 40% of 17-year-olds turning 18 are apparently in unregulated or independent accommodation — are they falling through the cracks of both these schemes? And consider Duncan: he came home from college to find his bags packed the week after he turned 18. Foster carers were willing for him to stay; social services said no. He was put into supported accommodation where at 3 am people were knocking on doors and drug dealing was happening around him. That is what the state as a corporate parent currently does to a child at 18.My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Watson, having attached my name to all the amendments in this group that include extending Staying Put support for young people up to the age of 25. The noble Lord has already made the case very well, so I will not repeat all the stats and the recommendations that we had from the MacAlister report et cetera, but it is worth reflecting on how hard it is today for young people to be independent at the age of 21. The Office for National Statistics report last year showed that, across our society, the average age at which a child moves out of their family home is 24. Surely the state should also be providing the kind of care that children are getting in families. I also have a genuine question that I have not been able to establish the answer to. These amendments and the Government’s plans cover both children in foster care and those in institutional arrangements. My understanding is that about 40% of 17 year-olds are staying in unregulated or independent accommodation, and it would appear that at the moment they are falling through the cracks and not being covered by either these amendments or what is happening here, so I would like to ask the Minister whether that is indeed the case and whether the Government have plans to act on that. It is perhaps worth setting out the kind of story of what is happening now, which I doubt anyone in this Chamber would disagree is unacceptable. Last year the Big Issue reported on the case of a young man called Duncan, who was in care with a foster family that he had been with since age 11. He came home from college one day and found that all his bags had been packed up. It was a week after he turned 18. The foster carers were happy for him to stay, but social services simply said that was not an option and could not happen, and packed his bags up. Think about how utterly damaging that would be. Duncan was then put into supported accommodation. At 3 am the next morning, someone…
Each year around 13,000 young people leave care without the support they need. Barnardo's strongly recommends a national minimum offer for care leavers — ending the postcode lottery and removing barriers to opportunity regardless of where they live.My Lords, I support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester’s Amendment 164 to introduce a national offer for child care leavers. This is strongly recommended by Barnardo’s because this amendment would end the postcode lottery of support for care leavers and help remove barriers to opportunity. Each year around 13,000 young people leave care without the support they need, and the outcomes of these young people remain much lower than those of their peers. That is why we at Barnardo’s—and I declare an interest as vice-president—believe that there should be a new minimum standard of support for care leavers: a national offer regardless of where they live. It should include measures recommended by Barnardo’s, which I hope the Government and the Minister will agree to.
Staying Put was introduced when a Minister for Children — Edward Timpson, who grew up in a family that fostered more than 90 children — had a deep personal understanding of these issues. We are not asking for a vast number of children or a vast amount of money; the benefits of supporting them to age 25 will be more than repaid by the problems avoided. On a national offer: the postcode lottery is real — if you asked every organisation providing care-leaver support to describe their offer in two minutes, you would get very different answers.My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and Amendment 164 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I am a retread, a hereditary Peer who originally came here not very long ago, in 1981, left in 1999 and was recycled, like an old tyre, in 2014. I made my first maiden speech in 1982 and my second in 2015, on the subject of Staying Put. At that time the Minister for Children was the rather wonderful Edward Timpson, the younger brother of the Department of Justice Minister here. He had grown up in an extraordinary family. Apart from having full-blood siblings, while he was growing up his amazing parents fostered more than 90 children. So Staying Put was put in place by an individual who had a deep understanding of the issues faced by young people unfortunate enough not to be able to live with their natural or even unnatural parents. Staying Put was a result of that. The debate in 2015 was to welcome the fact that it had been extended, having been deemed such a success. It is very fitting that now we have another Timpson in government, albeit in a different department, we again look at this and recognise how successful it has been. What we are asking for in this amendment will not involve a vast number of children or a vast amount of money. It will, however, be transformative for that small number of children. In economic terms, the benefits of giving them support up to the age of 25, if they need it, will be more than repaid by some of the problems that might cost rather more if they have to leave earlier. For all those reasons, I request that the Government look at this sympathetically and see how it can be fitted in. On the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, in so many parts of our society there is a postcode lottery. That is not surprising given how the highly centralised country of England, with all roads leading to London, coexists with a piebald mosaic of different l…
- Annual transparency reporting on Staying Close provision is exactly the same principle as my amendments on VSHs and Staying Put: if local authorities have to say publicly each year what they have done and achieved, they will want to do better next year.
My Lords, I have Amendment 94 in this group. It is very much the same as my amendments in the last group. If we can get local authorities to say clearly what they are doing and what they have achieved in a year, then they will wish to do better next year.
Clause 7 introduces Staying Close support for care leavers under 25, but the drafting risks rationing it or creating another postcode lottery. Assessment criteria must be specified — including the young person's wishes, accommodation requirements, emotional needs and existing support network. The Bill says nothing about young people's wishes and preferences, and "making representations" does not always translate into an actual service. Extend Staying Put entitlement to age 25: 75% of children in care say they want to stay with their foster family beyond the current limit. The pilots showed Staying Close produces better independent living skills, increased happiness, more education and employment, and reduced homelessness risk — so the entitlement should match the evidence.My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 85, 89, 92 and 93 in my name. Clause 7 introduces new requirements for local authorities in England to assess whether certain care leavers aged under 25 need Staying Close support; and when such support is deemed necessary, the local authority must provide it. This provision builds on the Staying Close pilot scheme, which gives care leavers safe and secure accommodation along with a trusted adult relationship for emotional and practical support. I am very grateful to the charity Become for sharing its expertise in this area with me. As the Minister knows, each year thousands of young people face what we might describe as a care cliff edge. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, vividly described, when they leave the system, they are expected to leave home at around 18—often abruptly but, I hope, not always as abruptly as in the case she described—losing vital relationships and support when they most need help transitioning to adulthood. Research by Become shows that “the transition from care to ‘independent living’ is often poorly planned and managed, and many young people feel unsupported”. Evidence from the Staying Close pilots demonstrates “improved outcomes for care-experienced young people … including better ‘independent living’ skills, increased happiness, better stability, increased participation in … education and employment; and a reduced risk of homelessness”, and that extending Staying Close support to age 25 will benefit thousands of young people leaving care. We warmly welcome that. However, we have concerns about the drafting of Clause 7, which could limit its impact. First, Clause 7(2) requires local authorities to assess whether Staying Close support serves the young person’s welfare, but without providing specified assessment criteria. We worry that this could lead to the rationing of support or a postcode lottery. Our Amendment 85 seeks to address that by explicitly setting out the factors the local authority must…
- Clause 7 is already very much in the spirit of Amendments 85, 92 and 93 — we want it aligned with pathway plans and a seamless direction of travel. On extending Staying Put: we must prioritise filling the gaps that exist, in particular for young people transitioning into independent living, many of whom have complex needs. All former relevant children under 25 — including those in or who have left a Staying Put arrangement — will receive Staying Close support where their welfare requires it, which includes accommodation support and wraparound services. The care leaver ministerial board, co-chaired by the Secretary of State for Education and Angela Rayner at MHCLG, shows the top-level cross-government commitment here.
My Lords, in responding to these amendments, I start by re-emphasising that we all know that care leavers have some of the worst long-term life outcomes in society and that many have not received the care and support that we would want and expect for them. We are committed to ensuring that young people leaving care have stable homes, access to health services and support to build lifelong, loving relationships, and are engaged in education, employment and training. The ongoing work and the measures in Clause 7 are geared to improving outcomes for those eligible and will help address any cliff edge of support they may face when leaving care. On Amendments 84, 86 to 88, 90 and 91 in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson, I thank him for highlighting the issues and for going through the background so thoroughly, but also for highlighting the very positive measures that were announced in the spending review yesterday. We look forward to further detail on how this will feed through into supporting some of the most vulnerable children in our society. These amendments together would require local authorities to provide former relevant children under the age of 25 with Staying Put support where their welfare requires it. They seek to probe why the Bill makes provision for Staying Close support to be offered to eligible care leavers up to the age of 25 when the Children Act 1989 puts duties on local authorities to support former relevant children and their former foster parents to maintain a Staying Put arrangement until the former relevant child reaches the age of 21. I acknowledge the example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett; of course, it would not be appropriate to comment on an individual case but I am sure that many of us in this Chamber could put our minds to similar extremely stressful and difficult examples that are based on the real experience of some young people. That is exactly why we have the Bill before us and what we are trying to achieve with it.…
- Could the Minister write to me about the 40% of 17-year-olds turning 18 who are apparently in unregulated or independent accommodation — are they covered by these schemes?
Before the Minister sits down, I asked about the fact that, apparently, 40% of 17-year-olds turning 18 are in unregulated or independent accommodation. Could the noble Baroness perhaps write to me about that?
- Yes, of course I'll write on that important point.
I apologise: I knew that I had missed the noble Baroness’s question. Yes, of course I will write on that important point.
- The Minister's answer on virtual school head reporting was excellent — a live, current, annual account. But on Staying Close reporting the response was just a menu: an Ofsted report every three years, buried in everything else the authority does. Between now and Report, please consider whether annual, named reporting by the team responsible for delivering Staying Close would not produce far better continuous improvement.
My Lords, the Minister will have noticed the difference between the answer she gave on the last group and the answer she gave on my amendment in this one. Channelling the reporting through guidance to the virtual school head is doing something that would be immediate, current and present and would affect the day-to-day way in which a local authority and its team conduct their business; something that may or may not appear in the depths of an Ofsted report every three years is not at all as effective. I encourage the Minister, between now and Report, to consider whether it would not be much better for the continual improvement of the Staying Close services if they were reported on annually and personally by the team responsible for delivering them, so that it becomes much more visible and a much more current thing for them to keep improving, rather than something that they hope will get lost in whatever else Ofsted is saying about the local authority as a whole.
- The Government's position amounts to "we're staying put" on Staying Put — the Minister here said it is about filling gaps in current provision, while the Commons minister said it was about prioritising those in residential care with the most complex needs. Neither argument justifies leaving a gap for under-25s in foster care; the numbers are small and the additional cost relatively modest. I intend to discuss this further with ministerial colleagues before Report.
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate on this group, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, both of whom spoke forcefully in support of the amendments—which may not be surprising, since they added their names to them, for which I also thank them. I say in passing to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on the point she raised about 16 and 17 year-olds living in unregistered accommodation, that there will be an opportunity to debate that in group 8 today, if we get that far. I also thank my noble friend the Minister for her reply, although, of course, it is disappointing. I noticed a nuanced difference in her response—if she will forgive me, it could probably be described in three words, “We’re staying put”, which is effectively what she said—whereas her opposite number in the other place said that the Government were not in favour of extending Staying Put because they wanted to concentrate on young people in residential care, who, she said, had the most complex needs. My noble friend today said that the Government want to concentrate on filling the gaps in current provision. Neither is unimportant, but I think that, where there are gaps in current provision, yes, they can be filled, but that does not mean that there are no gaps in the provision beyond the age of 21 for young people Staying Put. My noble friend said that, when people in foster care reach the age of 21 and leave for whatever reason, they will have Staying Close to fall back on in certain situations, and of course that is right. But, overall, we are dealing with a relatively small number of people who want to stay on in foster care beyond the age of 21. We are not talking about thousands and thousands, so the cost in additional resources required to do that is relatively modest. I have to come back to the point that I started off with, which is that there was a very positive statement yesterday in the spending review, which may offer…
Care leavers are nine times more likely to experience homelessness than other young people; statutory homelessness rates for care leavers have risen over 50% in five years. Extend Staying Put to 25 — the numbers and costs are modest and the spending review may be opening space. Local authorities must also publish clearly what financial literacy services they provide to care leavers: 67% are anxious about money; 80% want more help managing finances; 4,300 care leavers aged 18–20 end up homeless each year — a 54% increase in five years. There is no bank of mum and dad for these young people.My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 95 and 130 in my name, and in doing so I draw attention to my interest in the register as a member of the Financial Inclusion Commission. I think the amendments in this group are very important. They look in broad terms at the support that is available to care leavers—an issue which we all understand is incredibly important. I am supportive of pretty much all the amendments in this group, in particular Amendment 99 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which is about a national offer to care leavers and how that relates to local offers. No doubt we will come back to that. I had the privilege of attending an all-party group meeting recently where we spoke to a large number of care leavers. I think the noble Lord, Lord Watson, was there as well. I was very impressed with the presentations that these care leavers gave. One of them made the key point that they would like to see a national offer for all care leavers to ensure consistency. I asked them to send me some more details about what exactly it would entail, because this is a critical issue. My Amendment 95 is a bit more specific. It would require local authorities to provide more clarity on the services they provide to care leavers to help them develop their financial literacy and thus access their financial entitlements. As we have heard, young people leaving care are much more likely to leave home at an earlier age than other young people and be forced to live independently, often before they are ready. That means managing bills, a tenancy and other financial responsibilities, and juggling that with education or starting employment, often without having any financial safety net to fall back on, which so many parents provide for their children. I know it is stating the obvious, but there is no bank of mum and dad for this group of youngsters to fall back on. Too often, care leavers are not aware of the financial entitlements and supports available to them from the…
- The Bishop of Manchester's amendment on universal credit is crucial and must not get buried: care leavers turning 18 should receive the same universal credit rate as those aged 25 — it is humane, practical, and would save the state money by preventing people from falling through the cracks. Wales's UBI trial for care leavers showed that virtually every participant voluntarily took extra financial education sessions once they had decent income — which brings me to Amendment 95 on financial literacy. This is not niche: the Financial Times Christmas appeal last year was to fund financial education for British young people, an indictment of the whole system.
My Lords, I am going to be slightly unconventional and start with the last amendment in this group, Amendment 183A, in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I think it is so important that it does not get buried in this rather large and diverse group. This amendment seeks to deliver what was, in essence, in the right reverend Prelate’s Private Member’s Bill, which we debated a few months ago, and which I spoke in favour of. It sought to ensure that the universal credit regulations are amended so that care leavers turning 18 receive the same level of universal credit as anyone receives at the age of 25. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, who said that these are young people who have no access to the bank of mum and dad and no cushion. We are expecting them to live on a level of universal credit that is not reflective of what other people who have more support—not necessarily, but probably—live on. This is a modest measure. As I said at Second Reading, it is a humane, constructive and practical step. Although this should not be the reason for it, it is very clear that it would end up saving the state money by ensuring people have a little more support and do not fall a very long way through the cracks, as the statistics show they very often do. At the Second Reading of that Bill, I spoke about the wonderful scheme in Wales that has been trialling universal basic income for care leaves, set at a quite decent level. One of the interesting things was that the only condition put on those care leavers was that they had to take one session of financial education. This is where I come back to Amendment 95, from the noble Baroness Tyler, to which I have attached my name. I have heard anecdotal reports—we have not had the written reports from the UBI trials yet—that one of the offers was that care leavers could take more financial education sessions, in acknowledgement that they had a significant amount of money available to them. Virtual…
Amendments 96 and 107A specifically address the collaboration gap between education, primary care and hospitals — children with complex needs such as Tourette's are excluded or not diagnosed because different parts of the system don't talk to one another. Putting transition health arrangements and an automatic extended GP appointment for care leavers on the face of the Bill gives an imperative to every agency involved.My Lords, I will speak briefly to the excellent and compelling amendments in this group. In particular, I support Amendments 96 and 107A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, will remember that I spoke at Second Reading of her commendable Private Member’s Bill on mental health professionals, which I think was about 18 months ago. I raised the particular issue of children with complex needs—specifically children mainly in mainstream schooling who are diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome. For a number of years in the other place, I supported Tourettes Action in its research, profile-raising and fundraising. For full transparency, my brother is a professor of cognitive neuropsychology, specialising in human movement studies, which includes Tourette’s. I do not wish to detain your Lordships’ House in discussing Tourette’s, but I want to make the point that one of the key issues that affects children who have Tourette’s is a lack of collaboration and consistency across schooling, primary care and hospital settings. In other words, often children behave badly in school and are excluded because they are not diagnosed with Tourette’s and do not get the clinical care that they need. That work between the two parts of the state is not happening, and there is a similar issue for children with complex needs in the care system. Again, all these amendments are excellent, but the specific advantage of my noble friend’s amendments is that they would impose an imperative on the education sector, and specifically the health sector—primary care, hospitals and other clinical settings—to focus on those children leaving care with specific and very important pressing needs. There are a wide variety of issues that affect young people in that situation, including housing—the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham have focused on those issues—but the advantage of these two amendments is that they would put a focus on primary…
Care leavers up to 21 have priority under homelessness legislation but those aged 21–25 must prove they are vulnerable — an undefined test requiring letters from GPs and psychiatric services. That anomaly must end. Care leavers are nine times more likely to become homeless; the numbers presenting homeless have risen 50%. Children placed out of area also appear not to be automatically eligible for care support in the area where they actually live — please comment on that too. The amendment simply brings homelessness law into line with the Children and Social Work Act 2017, which already requires support to age 25.My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 100 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, which would insert a new clause aimed at giving all care leavers up to the age of 25 priority status in homelessness legislation. To that extent, it is a subsection of the much broader debate about how we look after care leavers. The amendment would end a current anomaly in the law, whereby care leavers up to the age of 21 are entitled to priority under the homelessness legislation, if they present as homeless to their local authority, but not those between the age of 21 and 25. It is supported by a range of charities, not least Barnardo’s. All young people need a safe and stable home in which to start their adult life—and, if you do not have that, it is difficult to access education, employment and health services. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, care leavers are more likely to be homeless than non-care leavers. Research by the charity Become shows that they are nine times more likely to become homeless, and that threat does not stop at the age of 21. Again as we heard from the noble Baroness, the numbers of young care leavers presenting as homeless has gone up by 50%. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, earlier that non-care leavers are staying at home much longer; the average age at which they leave is now 24, up from 21 a decade ago. Over the years, the legislation has been gradually catching up with that trend, beginning I think with the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, which recognised that the state or local authorities need to support children beyond the age of 18. Again as we heard earlier, care leavers do not have the same safety net of family to fall back on. There is a lot in the Bill which I welcome to support care leavers, in particular a recent amendment disapplying intentionality for care leavers, meaning that local authorities, when they have a corporate parenting duty, no longer view care-experienced people under 25 as…
- With over 80,000 children in care — the highest on record — the Bill must do more. One in three care leavers becomes homeless in two years; nearly one in ten black children in care has received a custodial sentence by 18. Support should be a national offer, not postcode luck. Ashley John-Baptiste's book *Looked After* shows graphically how hard it is to navigate life after care without a safety net.
My Lords, I support two amendments in this group, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, Amendment 99, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, Amendment 100, both of which I have put my name to. With more than 80,000 children in care, the highest figure on record, this Bill represents an opportunity to strengthen support for all care leavers. One in three care leavers becomes homeless in the first two years after leaving care. Many become drug users and end up with a criminal record. Some of the most affected care-experienced children are those from diverse backgrounds, who suffer double discrimination. Research by Barnardo’s found that nearly one in 10 black children in care has received a custodial sentence by the time they turn 18. When many finally leave care, they find themselves in prison or with a criminal record, which makes it difficult to find a home or employment, or develop a secure, happy life and any hope of a prosperous existence. They find themselves being part of a gang, which becomes a family substitute but leads to even more disaster. As the Minister said in reference to the earlier group of amendments, there is an urgent need to improve understanding across agencies and departments of the needs of children in care and care-experienced young people, as well as providing training on how to better address these needs. For example, the Department for Education could extend corporate parenting principles to all bodies involved with care-experienced young people. As we have heard, many young people can depend on their parents to support them long after they leave school or university, both financially and with a roof over their head. But support for care leavers across the country is piecemeal—a postcode lottery. Ashley John-Baptiste’s book, Looked After: A Childhood in Care, which I highly recommend, illustrates graphically just how difficult it is for young people to navigate their life after leaving care without support, especially if…
80% of Big Issue vendors surveyed had been through the care system; most had been in care for at least ten years. To produce a Big Issue vendor costs over £1 million — that is how expensive it is to keep people poor. Foster care costs £70,000 per child; residential care costs almost £200,000. Shift resources towards foster care as much as possible.My Lords, on Amendment 100, from the noble Lord, Lord Young, I will offer a bit of Big Issue news. We did a survey in the early part of this century in which we surveyed 150 to 200 Big Issue vendors. Some 80% of them had been through the care system; most of them had been in care for a period of at least 10 years. I wrote an article about this which upset a lot of people, because I said that, in order to produce a Big Issue vendor, you had to spend over £1 million. To me, that is one of most frightening things: how expensive it is to keep people poor. It costs £70,000 to keep somebody in foster care, but it costs almost £200,000 to keep somebody in care. We need to look at this problem. In spite of all the moral outrage, we need to look at this as a bit of fiscal bad news. We have to start shifting our resources towards moving children into foster care as much as possible. I am going to talk about this later, but I wanted to give noble Lords the news that Big Issue vendors are very, very expensive.
- 67% of care leavers are anxious about money; 80% want more help managing their finances. In 2024 the Become charity found 4,300 young care leavers aged 18–20 end up homeless — up 54% in five years. 47% of men and 29% of women still live at home at 25 because of housing costs; care leavers should have that cushion too. Extend Staying Put and publish financial literacy services in every local offer.
My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 95 in the name of my noble friend Lady Tyler, and to Amendment 130. We have heard that 67% of care leavers are anxious about money, according to the study by the charity Money Ready. Given that the second Oral Question today was on financial education post-16, it seems appropriate to talk about this in considering this amendment. Some 80% of care leavers want more help managing their finances. Rent eviction and homelessness are the consequences of poor financial literacy. In 2024, a report from the Become charity revealed that 4,300 young care leavers aged between 18 and 20 end up homeless. This represents an increase of 54% in the last five years. The Staying Put charity has helped, but most still leave care on or before their 18th birthday. In contrast, 55% of female and 59% of male 20 year-olds still live at home, and 47% of men and 29% of women still live at home at the age of 25. Most young people move out when they feel ready, when they have the financial capacity and literacy to live away from home. In contrast, care leavers need to be ready to leave home at a much younger age and do so usually with very tight financial budgets. There is no home to go back to if the money runs out. It is easy for care leavers to miss out on financial education to help prevent issues that come up with independent living for the first time. Not only is there little information about financial management; the avenues available for reaching support to apply for grants and loans mean that many struggle to access these resources. Because of the nature of the job market and house prices, 47% of men and 29% of women still live at home at the age of 25. The cost of living is keeping people at home; care leavers should have this support too. The expansion of the Staying Put scheme is supported by charities, and evidence from the charity Become shows that this would be a core way of mitigating against homelessness among care leavers.
- Think of this group as Maslow's hierarchy of needs for care leavers. Health is the bottom plank: care-experienced people have very poor uptake of physical and mental health support despite very great needs. Amendment 96 would require local areas to set out transition arrangements for health and primary care; Amendment 107A would automatically schedule an extended GP appointment so every care leaver has a chance to understand local services and how to navigate them. It is a very small ask. The idea that a 21–25 year-old who has been through the care system must yet again prove they are vulnerable before getting homelessness priority is frankly shocking.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said that this was a wide-ranging group. As I was thinking about it, I thought that what pulls it together is that it is a kind of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A lot of the amendments in it are the basic planks at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid; one of those planks is of course healthcare. My Amendments 96 and 107A try to address some of the evidence, which noble Lords will be well aware of, that shows that care leavers face much more negative physical and mental health outcomes than their peers. These disparities stem from the trauma they have suffered, adverse childhood experiences and, sadly, in some cases, the inability of their carers to meet their healthcare needs. In the general population, children and young people visit specialist clinics more frequently than adults, if they need them, and their growth and development necessitate regular adjustments to medication and treatments. In young adulthood, health needs typically stabilise. We expect adults to manage their own healthcare, work with GPs and other medical systems, and self-manage long-term health conditions. Parents in supportive family settings will guide their children, and maybe even grandchildren, through this transition, but care leavers do not have that support. They often struggle to recognise that they need help, they do not know how to seek it, and it can often be very difficult to navigate complex healthcare systems. As a result, care-experienced people have a very poor uptake of physical and mental health support but very great physical and mental health needs. These clear and practical points were raised with me by the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals, to which I am extremely grateful for its briefing and advice, and for the time it has taken talking me through these issues. My Amendment 96 would require local areas to set out clearly the transition arrangements for health and primary care for care leavers. It does not feel lik…
- Clause 8 will require local authorities to publish information on support available to care leavers under their local offer. We are funding family-finding, befriending and mentoring programmes; the care leaver ministerial board brings all departments together at the highest level. On extending Staying Put to age 25: we must prioritise filling current gaps in provision, especially for young people in residential care with the most complex needs. On out-of-area care leavers and homelessness eligibility: I will write. The health amendments raise important practical points — I will address both Amendment 96 and Amendment 107A further in correspondence. We recognise the postcode lottery concern and commit to working across government to address it.
My Lords, I like the description of the hierarchy of needs and I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I jump around a bit as well in my summing up. It has been a very rich set of contributions to an incredibly important part of the work that has been undertaken in bringing the Bill before your Lordships. The first four amendments in this group seek to amend Clause 8, which will require local authorities to publish information on the support available to care leavers as they transition to independent living as part of their local offer for care leavers, set out in Section 2 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017. The remaining amendments seek to extend support for care leavers to address the poor outcomes they experience across so many aspects of their lives. Improving support for care leavers is something the Government are committed to doing through the measures in this Bill on Staying Close, local offer, corporate parenting and other programmes such as the care leaver covenant, and also by other initiatives that seek to work across government. The fact that the Government have set up the care leaver ministerial board, chaired by Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson and for MHCLG Angela Rayner, shows absolutely top-level commitment to bringing all the relevant departments together so that they can most properly address the issues that have been raised here. It is probably beyond our ability through this Bill to address all the very important issues that have been raised and spoken to so eloquently from across the Committee. Of course, the basic principle is that we want to ensure that young people are leaving care with stable homes, access to health services and support to build lifelong loving relationships, engaged in education, employment and training. In response to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, that is exactly the reason this board has been set up: to bring everything together to address the complex needs of the young peopl…
- On the extended GP appointment — will the Minister say whether it is realistic to include this in GPs' contracts, so it becomes a scheduled part of transition, not just guidance?
Before the noble Baroness moves on, I am not clear about something. The specific recommendation from the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals is to have this extended GP appointment. The noble Baroness has now amended my amendment to make sure that it is at a convenient time. I just was not clear whether she said it would take time to produce the statutory guidance that will underpin all the corporate parenting responsibilities. However, as regards putting something—I am going to get the terminology wrong, so forgive me—into the kind of agreement with general practitioners, so that part of their contract is to offer this extended appointment as children young people leave local authority care, I was not clear whether the noble Baroness thought that was a realistic option, with the tweak of it being at a convenient time.
- It is absolutely realistic as a new departure; it will need consultation and everyone coming together to make the statutory guidance deliverable. I am happy to write with more specific detail as we move forward. On Staying Put to age 25: I won't repeat the arguments — we cannot commit to extending it at this point. We need to fill current gaps first.
I thank the noble Baroness for picking me up on that commitment. This is quite a detailed ask, but it is absolutely realistic that this is a new departure going forward and there will need to be consultation and everyone coming together to make sure that the statutory guidance is deliverable and works. However, I am happy to write to the noble Baroness with more specific detail on that area as we move forward. Amendment 130, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, seeks to extend the provision of Staying Put to age 25. We have discussed this at great length and I am no clearer as to why this is in this group of amendments rather than one of the others. So, without repeating the arguments, I will just say that the rationale is that we cannot commit off the top of our heads to effecting fostering arrangements without recognising that there will be a knock-on impact of change on the whole area of the foster care market, as it were. Any changes in this area are sensitive and have to be taken in the round. However, the most important thing that we have to address is that too many young people who have come through the route into independent living from residential care, for example—who often, as I said earlier, have the most complex needs—will be a priority area in terms of addressing the support that they do not have because they have not entered the foster care route. So, we are keeping an eye on all of this through the introduction of statutory Staying Close duties, making sure that all former relevant children under the age of 25, including those who are still in a Staying Put arrangement, as well as those who have left it, will be provided with Staying Close support where their welfare requires it. Amendment 153, in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, would require public bodies, when carrying out equality assessments, to consider the needs of people who are or have been in local authority care. We know that looked-after children…
- The response to the virtual school head reporting amendment was excellent — a live, continuous annual dialogue. But the response to the care-leaver local offer reporting amendment is just a menu: no content, no achievements, no disappointments. Between now and Report, please reconsider whether the better model — like VSHs — is annual, named reporting by the team responsible for delivering care-leaver services, making performance visible and driving improvement.
My Lords, that was a really disappointing response to Amendment 98. We started with a response to Amendment 78 which was excellent, a continuing annual dialogue by someone who was really involved in what is going on. When we get to this amendment, I am not offered a review at all, it is just the menu: no content of what has been done, how it has been done and what the excitements and disappointments of the year have been. I very much hope that the noble Baroness, when she reviews this day and looks in general, will say, “Actually, my first answer was the better one”, and that that sort of relationship between a local authority and its duties and the public produces a much better response than just a local authority setting out what its offer is and making no comment whatever on how its performance has been, and offering no interaction to the public in general as to how that is going on. I will talk to my noble friend on the Front Bench about coming back to this on Report. It was a more general look at how local authorities should relate to their public about what has happened this year and what they hope to do next year.
- There is real moral imperative here and I welcome the measures in the Bill, but the debate shows there is scope to strengthen each plank: health, housing, financial education, family relationships. The cross-government ministerial board is encouraging. Much to reflect on before Report.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. She used a word that I also thought of: it has been a very rich debate; it has been very wide ranging, with real passion, expertise and knowledge of the subject matter. We all agree there is a strong moral imperative that we do all we possibly can to support care leavers as they make their transition into independent lives. I welcome and recognise the number of measures in the Bill that do that, but the whole tenor of this debate is that there is scope for strengthening. So many specific planks have been identified: health, housing, financial education, family relationships, et cetera. There is much to reflect on. I was encouraged to hear that there is such a top-level, cross-government board looking at this, including Cabinet Ministers. That is really positive. Could this debate be drawn to its attention, so that it can see what we have said and the suggestions we have made? On the offer that should be available to all care leavers, it was helpful to have the distinction between some sort of national offer that is, essentially, the minimum standard that should be available everywhere and the local offer, where it is actually delivered. That will vary, but there is a set of standards below which it really should not fall. That is something we could think about further. Rather than getting back into other issues or any disappointment about responses, I have a suggestion: would it be possible for interested Lords who have spoken in this debate to have a meeting with the Minister before Report, so that we could look together at where it is realistic to do the strengthening, which came across very strongly in this debate? On that basis, I withdraw my amendment.
- Add a duty on local authorities to promote the child's family and social relationships alongside educational achievement — both are critical and interlinked. Research for the care inquiry found that the greatest failure of the care system is that it too often *breaks* rather than builds relationships. Children move far from home, change schools, lose family, friends and neighbours. The absence of positive relationships increases the likelihood of poor mental health, unemployment and homelessness. Amendment 102 addresses siblings specifically: 37% of looked-after children — 20,000 children — are separated from their siblings when placed into care; 93% of older children in semi-independent accommodation are separated from their siblings. Sibling contact should be a right, plain on the face of the Bill.
My Lords, I am afraid it is me again. I will speak to Amendments 101 and 102. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for adding his name to Amendment 101 and, of course, to my noble friend Lord Storey. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, cannot be in his place, because these amendments are both about relationships, which I know he feels passionately about. In short, Amendment 101 is about promoting relationships with children in care. That is central to their well-being and therefore at the heart of the Bill. The amendment would strengthen the duty on local authorities to support the well-being of children in the care system by promoting the child’s family and social relationships alongside their educational achievement. Both are critical and interlinked. We all need people to turn to in our lives for support, encouragement and love, particularly when times get tough. Research for the care inquiry by voluntary organisations concluded that the greatest failure of the care and child welfare system is that it too often breaks, rather than builds, relationships with children in and leaving care. Children often have to move to live far away from home, which means they have to change schools, leave behind family members, friends, neighbours and other important relationships. This is also relevant to Clause 11, which we will come to later, about children who have been deprived of their liberty. I will come back to that in a later grouping. The absence of positive relationships in children’s lives increases the likelihood that they experience longer-term difficulties such as poor mental health—we have already heard about that—a tougher time at school, unemployment and homelessness. When young people leave care, their professional support network too often just disappears, and they do not have family or friends to turn to. Charities such as the Family Rights Group have developed programmes of support to address this, such as lifelong links. I was going to tal…
- The quality of relationships matters more than the quantity: research shows that one stable adult in a young person's life is more important than multiple relationships. 37% of looked-after children are separated from siblings. Contact plans for siblings are too often broken because social workers move on — not through fault but through systemic churn. Children are rarely consulted on decisions affecting sibling contact, and the weight of maintaining those relationships is placed on the looked-after child. That should not be the case.
I shall speak to my noble friend Lady Tyler’s Amendments 101 and 102. Without embarrassing my noble friend, I thought that was a very powerful and emotional speech. For all of us in this Chamber, one of the most important things in our lives is the love of our family, our friends and relationships with other people. Those are the very things that children in care are often missing, so we should do all we can to ensure that they have the relevant relationships that they want. My noble friend Lady Tyler rightly said that we all need people in our lives to give us love, support and positive relationships—hear, hear. Children and young people in care indicate that it is relationships not just with professionals such as teachers and health professionals but with a range of other people who provide an important support network that they need. The quality of the relationships is much more important than the quantity. Research suggests that the presence of one stable and significant adult in the life of a young person is more important than multiple relationships. Social care cases across the UK reference the benefits of promoting the relationships of looked-after children. Those benefits will include: contributing to children’s resilience; promoting physical and mental well-being; minimising the likelihood of forming alternative, potentially dangerous relationships; helping with therapeutic work; and enhancing the stability of placements. But there are many barriers to ensuring such stable relationships. As a teacher, in case conferences I found time after time that—through no one’s fault but perhaps the fault of the system—one of the problems was that the social worker had moved on to another area of work. The child or young person had built up a relationship with the social worker, and the social worker, through no fault of their own, had to move on to another job, perhaps because of a shortage of social workers. That created real pressures. Changing social workers and p…
Two sisters were placed separately five minutes apart but were not allowed to see each other — one had to watch her sister at a distance in the same school playground playing with a foster-sister. Local authority boundaries can obstruct sibling contact even when the children live nearby. Judicial encouragement is usually enough but not always; court orders should be available to enforce it.I speak in support of both amendments but particularly Amendment 102 for the strong arguments which have been advanced. At every stage of a family’s involvement with a local authority, efforts should be made to enable siblings to maintain contact with each other and not to overlook the importance of the sibling relationship. It is now much better understood that, when parents can no longer care for a child, the most important and significant relationship that child may have is with his or her siblings—a relationship which, as the noble Lord has just said, can last a lifetime. Although local authorities and courts strive to keep siblings together, that is not always possible and they may have to be placed separately. They may have different and sometimes conflicting needs. At a practical level, larger sibling groups can be more difficult to place together. If, for whatever reason, they cannot be placed together, meaningful and workable contact arrangements are essential. There is a report, which I think is correct, of two sisters who were placed separately five minutes apart but were not allowed to see each other. One sister had to see her sister at a distance in the same school playground playing with a foster-sister. It is a desperately sad story. I recall having to deal with a case in which the siblings were a short distance apart from each other but in different local authority areas, and considerable efforts were required to get the two local authorities to co-operate. It is for that reason that I support the amendment. Judicial encouragement is usually enough but not always, and therefore court orders may be appropriate.
Bereaved children are a specific group whose siblings are often half-siblings, and when a lone parent dies they face double loss — a parent and then the sibling they are separated from. In one case I was involved with, keeping several bereaved children together despite huge obstacles meant all of them went on to pursue good careers. Separated, at least one would have gone off the rails. This amendment cannot cost anything financially — not adopting it probably will, through the emotional trauma of separation and its long-term consequences.My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has highlighted the problem of large sibling groups. I want to draw attention to a very specific group, which is bereaved children. Sometimes there are several children in a single-parent family and, when that one parent dies, often the children left behind are half-siblings—sometimes several of them. The amendment is incredibly important because those children are grieving for the parent who has died and then for the sibling or half-sibling that they are separated from. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, has reminded me of a family that I was involved with where the mum died and the father had been abusive so had no contact at all with the children, and the oldest child was a few months away from being 16. We managed, with the help of a schoolteacher and various other people, to keep those children together. Many years later, I still have some contact with them, and all the children have done well. I am convinced that, if we had not struggled to keep them housed together, then one of them in particular would probably have gone off the rails, yet they have all pursued good careers and have all done well. As an investment for the long term in the lives of all these children, the amendment is important. I hope the Government will adopt it. I cannot see that it would cost anything in financial terms, but not adopting it probably would, because of the emotional trauma to the children who are separated from the people with whom they cannot share memories and remembrances about whomever it is they are separated from. Another issue regarding that group of children is that sometimes there is a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle or someone who can provide them with some stability but is not in a position to provide kinship care. Keeping all those links going, and enabling them to link to cousins as well, can really support them.
There is enormous consensus here: we must protect family and social relationships for children in care. The Children Act 1989 already requires local authorities to endeavour to promote contact with relatives, including siblings, unless not reasonably practical or consistent with the child's welfare. Care planning regulations already require sibling contact arrangements to be in every child's care plan; placement regulations require local authorities to keep siblings together wherever reasonably practical. What is needed is good social work practice and a focus on this — not new primary legislation. The lifelong links programme, funded by government in 22 local authorities, provides a model. Children can apply to court for contact with a named sibling, and siblings can seek a contact order. The Bill's family group decision-making provisions also support this goal. We are debating this helps bring it to the fore in social workers' thinking.My Lords, in speaking to the amendments in this group, I recognise that there is an enormous consensus in this debate about the significance of family and social relationships for looked-after children, for children in care and for all of us. This is why we feel so strongly that these are relationships we need to protect as far as possible for the children who are looked after by the state. It must be key, as several noble Lords have said, that we are able to maintain those strong relationships. Perhaps at this point I should give a shout-out to my two sisters, who, after my mum, are the longest relationships by far that I have had in my life. As other noble Lords have said, when the going gets tough, it is your siblings who provide you with the support necessary—if you are as lucky as I am with mine—to get through those times. We have a responsibility to help those children whose lives have been even more difficult to be able, wherever possible, to maintain those relationships. When a child is in care, as other noble Lords have said, the local authority must allow reasonable contact with the child’s parents, if it is consistent with the child’s welfare. These amendments seek to place equal duties on local authorities to allow reasonable contact with siblings of children in care. They also seek to strengthen wider family and social relationships for looked-after children. We very much agree that it is important for a looked-after child’s welfare to, wherever possible, have and maintain positive relationships with their parents, siblings, wider family and friends. The importance placed on these relationships is echoed at all levels of a child’s care journey and is supported through current arrangements and statutory processes. We have heard in more than one debate today about the excellent work that has been done, for example, by lifelong links, which is supported in 22 local authorities by funding from the Government, and which is operating more widely than that. Th…
- I know from care leavers that the existing law and guidance too often has no impact on the ground. The objective of this amendment is to make sibling contact a visible right on the face of the Bill — for the children themselves to know it is there. Between now and Report: is the problem that the law is not clear enough and needs something on the face of the Bill, or is it primarily a social work practice issue? I suspect it is both. We may well return to this on Report.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very empathetic response. Following her example, I guess I ought to give a shout-out to my brother. We have been through some quite difficult times together, and that is what leads to that enduring relationship. I thank all noble Lords who participated in this debate. It has been one of those debates that shows this House at its very best, and that we can deal with issues to do with love and emotions. I am grateful for the Minister’s response. My reaction is as follows: it may well be that this is currently written into existing legislation and guidance, but I know from all the care leavers I used to speak to on a regular basis that, far too often, it simply does not have much impact on the ground—and I think this was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. One of my objectives in putting this amendment forward was to have something in the Bill that makes it absolutely obvious that sibling contact is a right. It would be really encouraging for children in care to know that it was there. Between now and Report, it would be helpful to have further discussions about the extent to which the problem is that this is just not clear enough in law, and so we need to put something in—which, again, as was said, would not have any cost implications—or whether it is more to do with social work practice on the ground. I am a great believer in both/and, so I think we may well be returning to this on Report. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
- A national register of foster carers would: enhance the status of carers and attract more volunteers, reducing the current shortfall of around 5,000; improve matching and increase portability; keep a central record of carers whose approval has been terminated for safeguarding reasons so they cannot slip undetected to another service; and, linked to regional care co-operatives, reduce out-of-area placements — which increased from 41% to 45% of children in care between 2020 and last year. The Commons Education Committee recommended considering this; Scotland and Wales are already consulting on it.
My Lords, introducing a national register for foster carers would produce many benefits. Overall, it would enhance their status. One resulting effect would be to attract more volunteers, thus beginning to reduce the shortage of foster carers across England, which currently stands at around 5,000. That in turn would improve the matching process by which children in care are placed with foster families, and increase the portability of foster carers. All those benefits would raise the level of safeguarding of children in the care system. Last year the Commons Education Committee inquiry into children’s social care recommended that the creation of a national register of foster carers should be considered by the then Minister for Children. The inquiry was interrupted by the general election, but the new committee has reactivated it and is still considering these issues. It has been reported that the Government are considering the merits of a national register, which would certainly be appropriate because both the Scottish and Welsh Governments are consulting on the creation of such a register. Perhaps my noble friend can clarify the current thinking on this. A register would safeguard children by keeping a central record of foster carers who have had their approval terminated for safeguarding reasons, ensuring that they are not reapproved by another service and then able to care for another child. Currently, services cannot always know this, particularly if potential foster carers are transferring between independents and local authority services. The introduction of a register would go hand in hand with an accredited pre-approval and post-approval training framework and robust national standards of practice, improving the overall quality of care for children. The number of children in care in England who are moved outwith their local authority area is an issue that we have heard mentioned by noble Lords in several of the debates today. It increased from 41% in 2020 to 4…
- We need a national foster care strategy. In March 2024 there were 83,630 children in care in England, up from 80,000 in 2020, and the majority are in foster care — but we have strategies for every other aspect of children's social care, and nothing for fostering. Of 160,000 families who expressed interest in becoming foster carers in 2020–21, only just over 2,000 were approved — a conversion rate of 1.3%. We need to understand why and fix it. The Children Act 1989 changed everything for the better; a national strategy would do the same for the next generation of foster care.
My Lords, Amendment 143 seeks to promote the idea of a national foster care strategy. I declare an interest in that a very long time ago my wife and I were registered as foster parents in the London Borough of Lambeth—nothing on the heroic scale of the Timpson family, of whom we heard earlier. It principally involved looking after the children of a single mother while she went into hospital to have her baby; somebody needed to look after her children before she was discharged. The regime in those days was much more relaxed than it is today. Since then, the relatively informal system has evolved into a much more structured and regulated part of the child welfare system, particularly following the Children Act 1989. There is now a much stronger emphasis on the physical and psychological stability of a child, and more awareness of the risks of inappropriate placements. I turn to the amendment. Most children grow up in their own home with two parents, one parent, or a parent and a partner, and most of the challenges that confront a family can be met within the normal support mechanism of families, friends, the local authority and heroic voluntary organisations. But at times children have to be taken into care by the local authority. In March 2024 there were 83,630 children in care in England, up from 80,000 in 2020. For those children, there is a range of options: for a very few it will be adoption, but for most it will be kinship care, fostering or children’s homes, and we had a good debate about kinship care and the role of local authorities as a constant theme.
- When I was in care as a young child the area of Fulham I grew up in was full of foster children, and those who excelled were the ones who had all-round relationships. Institutions are not good news for children. A strategy would help us share the loving relationships these children need with the circa 130,000 people who want to foster but haven't been reached.
I second the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Young. I am very interested in foster caring, largely because when I was in care as a young child, it was largely because I did not really have a family. I had a mother and a father, and I had brothers who were taken away in one direction. My parents were not very grown up; they had not really got used to the idea of having six children when they could probably afford only one. I find this amendment so interesting because it backs up my experience as a young boy. When our family finally reconnected in Fulham in south-west London, the place was littered with foster-children. It was very interesting. I got to know people who went to my school, and they were fostered. They were not blood brothers or sisters or related to their family. I found that so interesting because most of those children, dare I say—I do not want to appear as a classist—ended up being quite middle class. They ended up getting the education of a lot of us who passed through care. It was interesting that, in this area of Fulham, there was this great mixture of very working-class children with a bit of a middle-class aspect, yet the children who really excelled were the ones who had the all-round relationships. I would love to see a strategy that got behind those circa 130,000 people who want to foster. I would like to see a shrinking of the numbers of local authority homes, having been in a Catholic one, which was not an awful lot different from any other kind. The idea of institutionally raising children is not good news. The idea of raising children who were separated from their loved ones—as I was—is bad news. Therefore, I suggest we follow the example from the noble Lord, Lord Young, and create a proper strategy so that we can share out the loving relationships that we need to to our children, who are in desperate need, especially at the time when their own kith and kin cannot provide them with what they really need.
- 96% of independent fostering agencies are rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted, yet the sector cannot plan for the future without a dedicated strategy. Short-term tactical pledges are not enough. Many foster children say their new home gave them a new chance and they feel part of a real family. Without strategic oversight we will not fix the systemic pressures that drive up costs and reduce capacity.
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 143 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, to which I added my name and to which the noble Lord, Lord Bird, spoke so powerfully. I thank the Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers for its help on this. As we have heard, this amendment aims to ensure that the challenges within foster care services are both recognised and addressed. With a well-defined strategy in place to oversee necessary reforms to the system, we can ensure that local authorities are no longer burdened by the unstable expense of children’s social care. Many foster-children feel that their new home has given them a new chance, and they feel like a genuine part of the family. Foster carers overwhelmingly say that being a foster-parent has had a positive impact on their lives, as they provide love and support to vulnerable children. Independent fostering agencies—IFAs—play a huge role in providing high-quality care for children: some 96% of IFAs are rated “Good” or “Outstanding” by Ofsted. While the Government’s commitment to the foster care system since the general election is a positive step, it is vital that any interventions go beyond short-term fixes. This is why we need to see the introduction of a dedicated foster care strategy to provide strategic oversight to the tactical pledges made previously. There are welcome measures outlined in the Bill to regulate and introduce oversight of independent fostering agencies. However, given that these IFAs make up a significant proportion of the sector, without a dedicated foster care strategy, which provides insight into the Government’s ambitions for the sector, this already precarious sector is unable to plan effectively for the future. Ultimately, without addressing the underlying causes of pressure in children’s social care, such efforts risk falling short of delivering lasting impact.
Over 90% of children in children's homes and over 70% of all looked-after children have significant special needs, many lifelong. Foster carers take on extraordinary demands — they need streamlined recruitment, proper training, respite, support networks, and more delegated authority to make everyday parenting decisions. A proper foster care strategy must address all of that, not just numbers.My Lords, I support Amendments 134, 143 and 178. Fostering is critical to the provision of good care for all children who need it, and it is a really tough job. In Committee so far, not very much has been said about the very large proportion of looked-after children who have significant special needs—it is more than 90% of all children in children’s homes, and it is over 70% of all looked-after children. Many of those are problems that have arisen as a result of post-birth experience, but there are quite a lot of instances where these are problems that children were born with and will be with them for life. Some children are in foster care precisely because their birth parents have not been able to cope with their significant needs, so we ask a tremendous amount of foster carers. The measures in the amendment to improve on the current position are very welcome. But the Government could go further in some very practical ways, which is why I support my noble friend’s amendments. Room sharing is not always appropriate, but for some children it will be suitable. Similarly, foster carers need more authority to make more of the decisions and do more of the often everyday things that parents do. I support the comments made about the need for streamlined recruitment processes and a foster care strategy that really thinks about the support services, training, respite and wider services that help foster carers to do it well, to feel that they have the capacity and that they can sustain the tremendous effort of foster caring through the whole period that any given child needs it. There is an opportunity here.
- We have strategies for other areas of children's social care but not fostering — that gap needs filling. The three key reasons foster carers are leaving are inadequate pay, lack of support, and lack of respect for their role. Fewer than half of current foster carers would recommend fostering to others. A national strategy and a register together would begin to fix that.
My Lords, briefly, I lend my support to Amendment 143, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, to which I have added my name. This amendment, on the need for a foster care strategy, was, if I may say so, powerfully brought to life by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and I thank him for that. The noble Lord, Lord Young, put it very well when he talked about the gap that exists, saying that we had strategies for other aspects of children’s social care but not for fostering. It is a gap that it would be useful to fill, in the same way that the amendment I brought last time suggested a strategy for neglect. As we have heard, urgent action is needed to address the recruitment and retention crisis in foster care. Nationwide, it has been calculated that we have a shortfall of some 6,000 foster carers across the UK, with 5,000 more needed in England. Certainly, more foster carers are continuing to leave than are joining up. Various surveys have shown that the three key reasons for this have been inadequate financial remuneration, lack of support from their fostering service and a lack of respect for their role. I think that last one is really sad. I did notice in the 2024 State of the Nations’ Foster Care report that the number of foster carers who said they would recommend fostering to others has decreased. Indeed, fewer than half of foster carers said that they would recommend fostering to others who may be considering it. It is for those reasons that we need a national strategy to lay out how fostering will be more sustainable in the long term, not least to meet the needs of some of the children who the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, was talking about. I also support Amendment 105, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, which would be an important part of raising the whole status of fostering.
- This Bill is a huge missed opportunity on the foster carer shortage. There are 33 foster carers missing per local authority — it should not be an insuperable problem. Over 56,000 of the roughly 83,000 children in care are in foster care; if we had more carers, pressure would come off children's homes, prices would adjust, and outcomes would improve. Allow flexible models, including weekend placements. Allow primary-aged siblings to share a bedroom — foster carers already bear full safeguarding responsibility, so trust their judgment on sleeping arrangements. And confirm the Government will consult on delegated authority for foster carers and provide a timeline for amending the secondary legislation.
My Lords, the context for my Amendments 134 and 178 is, as we have heard in this short debate, that we face a very severe shortage of foster carers. As other noble Lords have said, this Bill feels like a huge missed opportunity to try to address this problem. Honestly, I do not really understand why the Government have not chosen to do more to address it—but perhaps the amendments in this group will offer the way. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, mentioned that there is currently a shortage of 5,000 foster carers in England; that is 33 foster carers per local authority. It just does not feel like an insuperable problem to find 33 homes across the country in each local authority—though, absolutely rightly, my noble friend Lady Spielman spoke of the very high prevalence of complex needs in children who go into foster care. This speaks to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and others about a strategy, which would also address the recommendation in the MacAlister review that we need more flexible models of fostering. As we have heard, of just over 160,000 families who expressed an interest in becoming foster carers in 2020-21, only just over 2,000 were approved—a conversion rate of 1.3%. I understand that many applicants apply to multiple agencies and so get counted twice. There may be timing issues for potential carers, and there are structural challenges, including pay and the need for training, and difficulties in the application process, as we have heard. This is the most significant area for the roughly 83,000 children in care. Over 56,000 of them are in foster care, half of them with independent agencies and half in local authority foster care. That is a very big and important number, and it feels fundamental to address it. It sits at the heart of what we might call the children’s homes problem of cost and profits, which we will debate in subsequent groups. If we had more foster carers, the pressure w…
- Fostering households have fallen 9% since 2020 and we share those concerns deeply. The Government has invested in recruitment campaigns, extended kinship payments, and funding for home extensions and adaptations. On bedroom sharing: national minimum standards already permit foster children aged three or over to share a bedroom subject to conditions — but shifting the default to promote sharing as standard risks undermining children's need for personal space, especially those who have experienced neglect or abuse. We can update those minimum standards without changing primary legislation. On the register: we are considering possible benefits and costs and will engage with stakeholders. On delegated authority: we have begun conversations with foster carers and services, we see the case for reform, and following consultation we are committed to amending the secondary legislation — no change to primary legislation is needed.
My Lords, this has been a well-informed debate on the amendments in group 5 concerning foster care, particularly informed by those who have had personal experience. The noble Lord, Lord Young, gave his experience of being a foster carer and I agree that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, made a very important contribution on what it feels like to be a child in the system and the lifelong impacts that has. I think there has been a consensus once again that foster carers offer crucial support to some of the most vulnerable children in our society. They provide love, stability and compassion to children and young people when they need it most. We very much share the concerns raised in this House about the falling numbers of fostering households—a fall of 9% since 2020—and the effect this has on children. Perhaps it was the late night I had had, but I felt marginally grumpy about the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that because there is not more about fostering in this legislation, somehow or another that means that this Government are not committed to righting the decline we have seen over recent years. Therefore, I will take the opportunity to spell out exactly what the Government have been doing. There is a tendency in this House, which is understandable because we are legislators, to think that things happen only if they are put into legislation. I hope I can demonstrate that there is plenty happening on fostering due to the actions of and investment put in by this Government.
- Napoleon said that a battle plan strategy was the most useless thing on earth — but that you were lost without it.
I just wanted to remind us of a little bit of history. Napoleon said that a battle plan strategy was the most useless thing on earth but that you were lost without it.
- The Government will set out its plans for foster care in due course, bringing together what is already happening and going further in the ways urged today. On the national register: we see the advantages but need to weigh security of sensitive data and risk of adding bureaucracy — we want to engage with fostering stakeholders first. On delegated authority: we will consult and implement necessary changes to secondary legislation.
That is good, because I was about to say—although I think he called it a battle plan, not a battle strategy—that the Government will set out our plans for foster care in due course, bringing together the range of activities that is already happening and taking on board the need to go further in the way that noble Lords have rightly pushed us to today. Amendment 105, introduced by my noble friend Lord Watson, is on the introduction of a national foster care register. As he outlined, fostering services currently maintain local registers of foster carers alongside records relating to prospective foster carers. A national foster care register would insert central government into the systems and processes of foster care oversight, which are currently deployed locally. But as he said, and as I think my honourable friend in the other place outlined in Committee there, we are considering the possible benefits and costs of a national register of foster carers as part of our wider reforms. There are a range of proposals for such a register. It will require some careful consideration. Specifically, I am sure we all recognise the need to ensure that a national foster care register would also meet local needs and avoid unforeseen negative consequences, and that it would overcome some of the risks surrounding the security of sensitive data, as well as imposing additional bureaucracy on the sector. But we want to engage with fostering stakeholders on this issue to determine next steps, and we can see some of the advantages of the national register that my noble friend outlined. Amendment 134, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is on the sharing of bedrooms for foster children to enable foster carers to look after more children in their home. She identified that one of the pushes for this comes back to one of the fundamental issues that we will discuss on upcoming clauses and which lies very much at the heart of the Government’s reforms: the insufficiency of high-quality pl…
- Will the Minister write with details of how many additional foster care places the Government's extension and adaptation funding is expected to secure?
The Minister mentioned that the Government are putting funding into extensions and so forth. Will she write with details of how many additional places that funding is expected to secure? I do not mean precisely, but just to give a sense.
- Yes — I will write specifically on that. On delegated authority: all foster carers should have it by default for day-to-day parenting decisions; this is outlined in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010, and we are committed to amending those after consultation.
Yes, I am happy to do that. Of course, that is just one part of the sufficiency work that the Government are doing and that other elements of the Bill aim to make progress on, but I will write specifically on that project. Amendment 178 on delegated authority for foster carers, which is also tabled by the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Barran, would give foster carers more autonomy and flexibility. All foster carers should have delegated authority in relation to day-to-day parenting of the child in their care, such as routine decisions about health, hygiene, education and leisure activities. That is so that they can support the child in having a normal upbringing, full of the experiences and opportunities that any other child would have. Under the current system of delegated authority, if something is not listed on the child’s placement plan then the foster carer does not have delegated authority and they must check with their social worker before decisions can be made. Foster carers can only take decisions that are in line with the child’s agreed placement plan and the law governing parental responsibility. This amendment would change that current system of delegated authority. I have considerable sympathy with the idea that if we are asking people to take on the crucial role of caring for children on a day-to-day basis and making them part of their families then they also need the authority to be able to do that in the rounded way that any parent would expect to have. That is why we have begun conversations with foster carers and fostering services about proposed changes to ensure that all foster carers should have delegated authority by default in relation to the day-to-day parenting of the child in their care. We think that reforming this policy area would benefit from a period of consultation with stakeholders to ensure that any change to delegated authority best reflects the interests of all parties but, following a consultation, we are committed to implementing ne…
- It is important that any foster care strategy connects national direction with local delivery — local and national sit neatly together, not in opposition. On the register: bureaucracy concerns should not be an excuse; whatever it takes to enrol more foster carers needs to happen. I am encouraged by the Minister's response and look forward to developments.
I thank my noble friend the Minister for that comprehensive response and I thank noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. One thing that has always struck me about your Lordships’ House is the vast experience, on all sides, that often emerges in debates. On this group this evening, we have had two further examples of personal experience from the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and the noble Lord, Lord Young. Such experience always informs the debate and gives it a depth and breadth that, certainly when I have been in other legislatures, has not always been the case, and it is very valuable. I heard what my noble friend said in her response about the proposal for a national foster care strategy. One of the strong points of Amendment 143 from the noble Lord, Lord Young—which would have had my name attached to it, incidentally, had it not already had three names when I went to add mine—is subsection (2), from memory, which refers to how we can improve the quality of foster care. That seems self-evident and I am sure the Government are doing it anyway, or trying to do it anyway, but it seems to me that it is important that, however well we are doing, we are not doing well enough, given the figures that have been quoted, not least the number of foster carers coming forward and the high rejection rate, to which the noble Lord, Lord Young, referred, which is astounding—I had not heard that before. There must be some reason for that, which we could surely turn around to get to the 5,000 shortfall, if that is what we have across the country. On the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, about what Napoleon said about the need for a strategy, whatever the Government are doing on this and in the broader children’s social care field, it is important that there is a strategy, whether or not it is written down. I do not know whether Napoleon had strategies throughout his lengthy career—which mostly went pretty well until it ended at what I might say is a London mainline railway sta…
- As a councillor in Liverpool I met an adopter whose severely traumatised 11-year-old had been receiving therapy funded by the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund. Their allocation was cut by nearly £2,000 and they can no longer afford the therapy. I put a Written Question to the Minister and received a reassuring answer — but almost half the ASGSF awards last year exceeded the new £3,000 per-child cap. The £2,500 specialist assessment allocation has been abolished entirely; match-funding for exceptional need has gone. Thousands of children will lose therapy. Change exacerbates trauma for children with attachment difficulties who need sustained, regular support. With some spending-review money now available, use a small amount of it for these cases.
My Lords, as a local councillor in Liverpool, once a week I do what I call my “Keeping in touch”, where I go to each resident with a little form and ask them to fill out any particular concerns they have in the area: “Leave it outside your letterbox, and I’ll be back in an hour to pull it out”. I did the final household and thought, “I will finish now and go home”. The lady opened the door and said, “Everything is fine. We didn’t need to fill it out”. I said, “Oh, that’s good news. Goodbye”. As I was walking down the path, the lady said, “Actually, there is something you could help me with.” I said, “What is it?” She said “No, I don’t think you can help me.” I said “Well, what is it?” She said, “I and my husband adopted two children when they were two-and-a-half years old. One is now 11 and the other is 12. The boy was severely traumatised as a two-and-a-half year old, so much so that he has to have regular therapy sessions. The problem is that the grant we got has been cut by nearly £2,000, and we now cannot afford the therapy sessions.” I said, “Okay, leave it with me and let me think this through.” I thought, “Well, I will put down a Written Question to the Minister.” We know how Written Questions work, do we not? Those who have been Ministers will know that, often, they try not to reveal all the facts as they happen to be.
- The APPG on Adoption and Permanence has had to launch a fresh inquiry into this fund every two or three years across successive governments. For a parliamentary assistant colleague with an adoptive child in crisis, it was only the ASGSF that kept the adoption from breaking down. This is a genuine lifesaver for families that spends relatively small sums to disproportionate good effect. The fund should not keep being threatened; please do not make us go through that cycle again.
My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I will also speak to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson. As far as this fund is concerned, I have been involved in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Adoption and Permanence as an officer and occasional co-chair for the past seven or eight years. I do it with somebody the Minister will know: Rachael Maskell, the MP for York Central. I was just scrolling back on the group’s website to see how many times we have had to launch a mini-inquiry into this fund and go through a process of appealing yet again to successive Governments to keep it going. In doing that, we have amassed each time a large amount of evidence to show just how much good this fund has done and how transformative it is for families who have adopted children, many of whom are expressing the medium- and long-term effects of the trauma they received in early life. This fund is a genuine lifesaver for those children. I have kept in touch with a parliamentary assistant who works for an MP and is an adoptive parent. She has told me over the past few years about the intense challenges she and her husband have had with one of their adopted children and how, frankly, without the support of this fund, they were getting near crisis point and would have had to give up the adoption, so the child would have lost their adoptive family. It was the fund that enabled them to keep going. I stress to the Minister the disproportionate good that is done for these families by the expenditure of relatively small amounts of money, in the great scheme of things. The quality support and counselling that is required to help children with this level of trauma is not cheap. It requires extremely dedicated professionals who are very focused in this area. Working with children who have experienced trauma is as challenging for the practitioners as it is for the parents and the children. I would hate to think that, over the next four years of t…
- The cut from £5,000 to £3,000 per child in the ASGSF was announced on 1 April and then again adjusted on 22 April; the £2,500 specialist assessment budget has been abolished. On my rough estimate that leaves about six therapy sessions per year — simply insufficient for children with these needs. The very late announcement means almost half of applicants must reapply. What cost-benefit analysis has the department done on the savings from the ASGSF cuts set against the cost of placement breakdowns? If the fund is not sufficient, adopters will withdraw, placements will break down, and the state will pay far more in residential care.
My Lords, I am delighted to add my name to Amendment 107 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I commend him and his colleagues in the other place, particularly the honourable Member for Twickenham, on their concerted efforts to bring attention to this important fund, which provides support to about 20,000 very vulnerable children who have suffered great trauma. The anecdote that the noble Lord gave of the family he met brought this issue to life very vividly. I also thank other noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate, all of whom have brought great experience, and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for his remarks, his expertise and the work of the APPG that he co-chairs. I will not go into detail on the rather unusual set of announcements that the Government made about the fund, first on 1 April and then very shortly afterwards on 22 April, when it was announced that the fair access limit, or funding per child, would, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, explained, be cut from £5,000 to £3,000 per child per year, and that the £2,500 limit for specialist assessment—which, as I understand it, was in addition to the £5,000—had been abolished. The remaining fund now has to cover both the assessment, judged by the department, I assume, to cost up to £2,500 per child, and the therapy. If we give the department the benefit of the doubt and say that the assessment cost around £1,500, then, being very generous, that leaves about six sessions of funded therapy per year, which for these children is simply insufficient. I am not suggesting that those are the real numbers; they are just my back-of-the-envelope estimates to give the Committee a sense of what is happening here. Hence the importance of this amendment, which focuses on the per-child funding level and seeks to bring some clarity to the amounts needed. In her Written Ministerial Statement, the Minister said that the ASGF—that is a new acronym for me— “will still enable those eligible to access a s…
- Adoption barely appears in this 137-page Bill — the word "adoption" appears only four times, three as part of referenced legislation. That is a missed opportunity. Around 4,000 children are placed in adoptive families each year; 80% will have suffered abuse, neglect or violence before adoption. Evidence is clear that adoption outcomes are better than residential care. The Adoption Support Services Regulations have not been updated since 2005. An independent review should consider whether the services, regulations and guidance are fit for purpose.
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Russell. I will speak to Amendment 145 in my name. To be honest, I am pleasantly surprised that the Public Bill Office accepted the amendments in this group as being within scope, because the Bill seems to studiously avoid adoption. A search that I carried out revealed that the word “adoption” appears only four times in the Bill’s 137 pages, and three of them are as part of other legislation that is referred to. That is disappointing because the Bill offers an opportunity to improve outcomes for adopted children, some of whom are among the most vulnerable in society, alongside measures for children in kinship care and foster care and care leavers. That is a package, or a jigsaw, all of whose parts interact, and, frankly, I do not understand why one part is virtually absent. There is overwhelming evidence that adoptees are not currently getting the support they need to provide them with an equal chance to thrive, and that is unfortunate. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell said, it is a relatively small number in the greater scheme of things, but I still do not see why adoptive families are not given the credit they deserve for the important job that they do. The review mentioned in my amendment would consider the adequacy and effectiveness of adoption support and highlight current gaps in the system. Every year, around 4,000 children in the UK are placed in adoptive families, and government data shows that around 80% of adopted children in England last year will have suffered abuse, neglect or violence before adoption. Before being adopted, children spend an average of 15 months in care, often moving through several foster families, and many lose everything that is familiar to them along the way because of that process. Meanwhile, adoption gives children a chance to build some stability as part of a loving, safe and nurturing home. Evidence is quite clear that outcomes are better for children who are…
- The variability in regional adoption agencies is something the Government should be reviewing carefully. Failed adoptions, after so many hopes have been pinned on them, are profoundly damaging — and that severity reinforces the case for proper, ongoing, adequate support.
My Lords, briefly, I support what the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Watson, have said, on the basis of my experience as an adoption judge. First, in respect of what the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said about the variability—as it has now emerged—of regional adoption agencies, I suggest that that is something the Government should be reviewing carefully. Secondly, I want to emphasise the point he made about the sheer awfulness of disrupted and failed adoptions, particularly in cases where so many hopes have been pinned on the adoption and so much trouble has apparently been made in preparing the child and the adopters.
- Adoption is a priority for this Government and will remain so. The ASGSF has supported over 53,000 children over 10 years. We provided £50 million for 2025–26. The revised criteria from April 2025 — £3,000 per child — fund 19–20 hours of therapy on current average costings, and children can receive support across multiple years. I recognise the strength of feeling and that some families have seen a cut in what they received. Applications under the new criteria are being processed as speedily as possible. We will continue to assess implementation and take these issues into account in business planning decisions. On Ofsted and adoption support reviews: the Secretary of State has powers under the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to require Ofsted to inspect adoption support, and we will continue to do so.
My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in group 6. This is the second group of amendments in a row where I think that, quite rightly, we in this Committee will recognise the enormously important contribution made by those people willing to take children into their homes and families as a result of adoption. As other noble Lords have said, and as I know from having spoken to people who have adopted children, it is something that can bring enormous pleasure, satisfaction and completion to some families, and is often very much wished for by families. However, because of the nature of the experiences that children have gone through and the history of some of those children, notwithstanding that a family when adopting a child take on responsibility for that child and they become part of their family, I completely understand the need for there to be ongoing support for children in those circumstances. Without going too far into history, one of the very first pieces of legislation that I did the last time round when I was a Minister was the Bill that became the Adoption and Children Act 2002. At that point, there was still quite a lot of discussion and debate about whether it was legitimate to provide any support for children in adoptive families. Notwithstanding the concerns that have been expressed as a result of these amendments, it is the case that considerable progress has been made in understanding the nature of the challenge and the reward that comes from adoption, the types of experiences that children may well have had before going into adoption, the impact that that has on families, and the requirement to provide support on an ongoing basis for children who are adopted. I recognise that the amendments in this group cover that issue of support for adoptive and kinship children, as well as how we can ensure and review the quality of adoption support that is being provided. This is a significant area, to which the Government are committed. Although there are some…
- It is Lord Russell — not the Earl Russell. In 1959 my grandfather and Bertrand Russell jointly wrote to the Times: 'Dear Sir, we would like to point out that neither of us is the other. Yours, Russell, Russell of Liverpool.'
It is actually Lord Russell. I have told this to the House before, but in 1959 my grandfather and Bertrand Russell—the then Earl Russell—jointly wrote a letter to the editor of the Times that said: “Dear Sir, we would like to point out that neither of us is the other. Yours, Russell, Russell of Liverpool”.
- I apologise — and £3,000 funds 19 to 20 hours of therapy, many children receive support across multiple years so the following year's allocation is not consumed by assessment costs, and local authorities can supplement from mainstream children's services budgets if needed. The Government recognises the concerns and will take them into account in future funding decisions.
I am glad to know that I am not the only person who has made that mistake. I apologise to the Chamber and to the noble Lord, Lord Russell. The noble Lord talked about the important work done by the all-party group and part of the history of ensuring that there is sufficient focus through government activity to provide the necessary support for adoptive families. The adoption and special guardianship support fund has given valuable support to over 53,000 individual children over the 10 years that it has been in place. Many have received support for multiple years, which is a point that I will return to when talking about the criteria. The Government have continued to support the ASGSF; we provided £50 million for 2025-26. There has been an increase in demand—some noble Lords argued it was an increase in need. Then you face a challenge, regardless of how much money is allocated, as to whether you provide more support for fewer children and families, or ensure a level of support for a larger number of children and families. The revised funding criteria effective from April 2025 will continue to enable children to receive an excellent level of support, many at similar levels to before, and £3,000-worth of therapy remains a substantial amount of support. On the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about the assessment, children and families receive this support over several years and I think I am right in saying that this £3,000 would include the assessment. Perhaps the next year or the year after that, it would not be necessary to redo the assessment, and £3,000 would fund 19 to 20 hours of therapy on current average costings. As I say, there are many children and families who are receiving similar levels of support as before, although I recognise the case brought to the attention of this Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, where families have seen that as a cut in the provision that they have been able to receive. Local authorities can continue to sup…
- The Minister mentioned 19 sessions — but the range of ASGSF applications has typically been 20 to 50 sessions per year. That puts £3,000 right on the margin for even the lightest historical users.
I have just checked, and I think the Minister mentioned that, with the £3,000, the average number of sessions that would be allowed is about 12.
- 19 to 20 hours — and, as I said, support continues across years so the assessment is not paid from the following year's allocation. We will take the concerns into account when making decisions about future funding.
It would be 19.
- But typical applications have been 20–50 sessions per annum — so £3,000 is right on the margin even for the lightest users.
The range of applications for the support fund over the last few years has typically been between 20 and 50 sessions per annum, so it is right on the margin.
- Support continues across years so in year two the assessment cost is not deducted. I recognise the strength of feeling and we will take these issues into account in future DfE budget decisions — the ASGSF is not statutory and must remain flexible, but we are listening.
I did say that it would fund 19 to 20 hours. I also made the point that this is something that does not happen within only one year; it is something that can continue, in order to provide support. However, I also said that I recognise the strength of feeling expressed today and by others outside Parliament. We will of course take these issues into account when making decisions about how to allocate funding from the DfE budget for future years. I hope this will assure noble Lords that we are considering these issues very carefully. On Amendment 145 in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson, I agree with my noble friend that adoption support should be high-quality. Of course, Ofsted already reviews how well authorities are delivering adoption services and publishes reports on each authority every three years. The Secretary of State has powers under the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to require Ofsted to provide information on or conduct an inspection of any specified function of the local authority that falls within its remit, which may include adoption support services. Ofsted reports regularly on adoption support in local authorities, children’s social care inspection reports and on adoption agencies.
- The Minister has given some crumbs of comfort. My father was adopted by a single woman with no support at all; every adoptive family today deserves better. The boy I met — severely traumatised as a two-and-a-half year old, now losing his therapy — may regress. Every failed adoption is a failure for all of us. I hope we can, as a caring society, ensure no child who needs that kind of therapy goes without it.
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Russell, Lord Watson and Lord Meston, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and my friend Munira Wilson in the other place for raising this issue. The Minister is right. My father was adopted: surprisingly, he was adopted by a single woman. In those days, no support at all was given. But now we recognise the contribution that parents who adopt children give. We should be giving them all the support we possibly can, because every failed adoption is a failure for us. On the particular case that I encountered, there was a two-and-a-half year-old boy who had been seriously traumatised—I will not tell you how he was traumatised, although I know. He had therapy and then that therapy stopped, which just seems unbelievable. He presumably will regress; I just do not know. However, the Minister has given me some crumbs of comfort, and perhaps we can hope that, as a caring, tolerant society, we can support not just this boy but any child who is adopted and who needs that kind of therapy. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.