Committee stage in the Lords
Lords Committee debated three groups of amendments on regional care co-operatives, residential care capacity and deprivation of liberty placements for looked-after children.
L(The ICBs must be included in the development, delivery and governance of the regional care co-operative arrangements — every child in residential care will almost certainly have significant mental health needs, and the NHS England abolition and a 50% cut to ICB operating costs risk gutting the safeguarding expertise that underpins this. Safeguarding is a front-line service; it cannot be treated as a corporate overhead. Will local government reorganisation — authorities like Norfolk moving to one or more unitaries — leave local authorities unable to cope with the additional responsibilities the Bill is piling on them in the short term?My Lords, I open this important group of amendments on regional care co-operatives with my Amendment 107D. We will hear later about the stresses and pressures on local authorities in relation to the cost of children’s homes. The establishment of regional care co-operatives was a key recommendation of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, carried out by the now honourable Member for Whitehaven and Workington, Josh MacAlister. I pay tribute to Mr MacAlister MP for his ground-breaking work on this review. He put a huge amount of effort into it and needs to be applauded for that. I look forward to hearing about the amendments tabled by other noble Lords, who I am sure are keen to raise important issues relating to the RCCs. My amendment is very straightforward. It seeks to clarify the role of the independent care boards—ICBs—in the RCC arrangements. In my experience as an MP for a number of years, visiting many care homes and talking to many practitioners in this field, every child in residential care will almost certainly have significant mental health needs and, very often, physical health needs as well. The Minister will be aware of the serious concerns that have been expressed by a number of organisations that the reform of ICBs will lead to changes in the funding allocations for their safeguarding role. This could compromise and undermine their effectiveness. My amendment makes it crystal clear that ICBs must be included in the “development, delivery and governance” of the RCC arrangements. The Minister, a very experienced former Cabinet Minister, will be aware of the concerns expressed by the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals—NNDHP—for children and NHS England regarding the health workforce’s ability to implement the relevant clauses in the Bill. In March, NHSE reported that “all current caseload reviews suggest that child safeguarding expertise is already fully committed and at full capacity”. I very much hope that the Minister w…
The move to regional care arrangements is welcome — as is the significant new investment announced in last week's spending review — but without safeguards the regional model could push children even further from their communities while still keeping them technically within a region. Between 2013 and 2024, the number of children living more than 20 miles from home rose by 66%, against a 23% rise in the overall care population. My amendments would lock in a duty to keep children close to the people and support networks that matter to them.My Lords, my Amendments 108 to 116 focus on the distance from home of placements for children in care, and the impact of the move to regional care co-operatives. I welcome the move to regional care arrangements of this kind, as well as the significant increase in investment in children’s social care in last week’s spending review. Put together, they offer a real opportunity to power up on the delivery and implementation of the MacAlister recommendations for children’s social care, with real improvements to the experience of and outcomes for children in care. The distance from home that some children in care have been placed in has, as many noble Lords will know, been an issue for some time. Local authorities across the country have faced increasing challenges in delivering sufficiency of places near to home in recent years, due to increasing demand, rising costs, cuts to early-intervention funding, and workforce challenges, leading to what can be seen only as a broken care market. The national issue has had a significant impact on the experiences and outcomes of children in care, who too often are moved to homes that are unable to meet all their needs or moved far away from those who matter most to them, due to a shortage of appropriate options. Between 2013 and 2024, the number of children in care living more than 20 miles from home increased by 66%, compared with a 23% increase in the overall number of children in care during the same period. In 2024, more than a fifth of all children in care and almost half of those living in residential care were living more than 20 miles from home. Research from the charity Become has highlighted that children living in private children’s homes were two and a half times more likely to be living such a distance from their community than children living in other residential care settings. We have talked before about the negative impact of being separated from communities, support networks, friends, families and schools, and what…
State intervention in a child's life should make things better, not worse. One in ten looked-after children experience three or more placements in a year. The duty under the Children Act 1989 to accommodate children close to home exists precisely because proximity keeps parents engaged and meets a child's attachment needs — phone and digital contact are no real substitute. That duty needs to be reinforced, not diluted by regionalisation.My Lords, following on from that, I too wish to support those amendments directed specifically at ensuring placement of children close to home, both in this group and the next. Quite simply, state intervention in the life of a family should, if possible, make things better, not worse. Recent figures from the Department for Education show that one in 10 looked-after children experience three or more placements in a year; this is described as “high placement instability”. There is already in Section 22C of the Children Act an important requirement to accommodate children close to home. It is recognised that such proximity increases the prospects of a child being later returned home. When a child is accommodated away from home and from parents, and away from a familiar area, some parents become unable or unwilling to provide any further support and they disengage, or at least they give up on active engagement. There will remain a need for interaction between the local authority and parents. Parents retain parental responsibility and, even if they do not do so, they should be encouraged to remain involved and see themselves as able to remain involved. That is likely to be reassuring for the child and meet that child’s continuing attachment needs. However, parents and wider family members cannot be expected to maintain involvement unless the placement of the child is reasonably accessible to them. Phone and digital contact are no real substitute. I suspect the Minister might say that the obligation under Section 22C is already referred to in the Bill, but I would support the suggestion that it should be emphasised and reinforced by these amendments. I also support Amendment 117B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, which would ensure that the Bill does not detract from the duty in Section 22C(7) of the Children Act.
You cannot plan what you do not measure. The RCCs need strategic visibility of how many foster carers, residential beds and emergency places are truly needed and where — that is what Amendment 116B provides. Amendment 117C requires an annual public sufficiency report so that local authorities, Parliament and, most importantly, children and their families can see whether the system is working. Amendment 117D ties commissioning to outcomes: did we have enough places, and did they make a difference? Children's wellbeing is in the Bill's title; it cannot mean anything if we do not collect the data to prove we are delivering it.My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 116B, 117B, 117C and 117D in this group, which are tabled in my name. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, and to the noble Lords who have already spoken. I agree wholeheartedly with what has been said so far. The intention behind these amendments is to address the issues of attachment, disruption and trauma, which can ensue from housing children too far from home—noble Lords who have already spoken have addressed this. We know that we can minimise the damage and effects of being housed too far away by proximity. I have therefore tabled amendments in a probing manner to invite the Minister to reflect on whether there is some way in which these concerns, as expressed in Committee today, could be accommodated in this legislation. Amendment 116B essentially proposes a duty to collect sufficiency data. It would address the basic idea that you cannot plan what you do not measure. We know from the MacAlister review and from many other organisations which support RCCs—as, indeed I do—that there are concerns about current provision already, and that we need to make sure there is strategic visibility, so that RCCs working together know how many foster carers, residential beds and emergency places are truly needed and where investment is most urgent. In the independent review commissioned by the last Government, the now Labour MP Josh MacAlister was very clear that data should drive the planning. I urge the Government Benches to consider that viewpoint. This amendment would give legislative force to his recommendation. It would allow readily available data to be collected so that we could target spending wisely, empower the local leaders who are responsible for assigning the places and avoid waste. Amendment 117C just builds on the previous proposal requiring the RCCs to publish an annual sufficiency report. It is a basic governance issue of transparency and accountability, which would allow the local authorities, providers…
The Bill must do more to embed real consideration of children's wishes and feelings. The UK ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991; children are experts in their own lives. Those who will be most directly affected by RCC regulations must be named in the Bill — leaving it to the Secretary of State to consult 'such other persons' is not good enough.My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 117 in my name, and I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for adding their names to it. This is an important group. Many times in discussions on the Bill, and more generally, we have talked about the dangers of children being placed far away from home. That is why this is such a critical group. I strongly support everything that has been said so far and the amendments that have been tabled specifically with regard to trying to prevent children from being placed far from home when there are any other viable alternatives. The intention of my amendment is quite simple: it is to ensure that those making decisions affecting children and young people seek and take into account their wishes and feelings. I shall say a couple of words of general context. I welcome the Government’s ambition to be a child-centred Government, and I support the important steps taken in the Bill to strengthen systems that intend to do that and to keep children safe, but there is more that the Bill could do to be truly child centred. At the moment, it needs to do more to embed real consideration of children’s wishes and feelings—hence my amendment, which was discussed on an earlier occasion, about children’s wishes and feelings being respected in relation to family group decision-making. In 1991, the UK ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In so doing, we recognised that children have a distinct set of rights that uniquely value all that it means to be a child. In short, it recognises that children are expert in their own lives. As we know, in cases of abuse and neglect, giving children the opportunity to express their views is a critical factor and lever in building trust and keeping children safe.
The late Baroness Massey of Darwen would have led this amendment with far more power than I can. We have a plethora of organisations trying to look after these young people but a system that is clearly not working — local government is drowning in statutory duties heaped on it by well-intentioned legislation. Let's learn from the past: services must be driven by what children actually need, not by the inadequacies of current supply.My Lords, at Second Reading I said that, while I welcomed the Bill, it was a cause of great sadness that the late Baroness Massey of Darwen was not there to participate. It is a cause of sadness that, had she been here, she would have had her name on this amendment rather than me, with much more power and justification behind it. At the time of her untimely death, she was working with a group of us in this House to try to find ways of having the voices of children heard more regularly in the day-to-day work of this House, particularly in some of our committees. That is work that is yet to be completed, and we must carry it on. The Josh MacAlister review showed us that, while we have a plethora of different organisations trying to look after the needs of the young people we are talking about in a variety of different ways, with an enormous amount of data about what they are and are not doing, the fact that we had to have a large-scale review to collate and understand this data—which required tremendous resources but which was carried out very effectively—and that we spent as much time understanding what it was not telling us as what it was telling us, is in itself telling. I particularly support the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Cash. In trying to improve a situation that has developed over the last 20 or 30 years, and which at the moment is causing local government across this country huge difficulties because of the statutory duties that we have heaped upon it in legislation after legislation, with the best of intent, we have a system that is not working. We have an opportunity in the Bill to learn from the lessons of trying to do the right thing but clearly going about it in the wrong way, and to do it in a much better way. I particularly took the points that, first, children should be listened to, and, secondly, that, in trying to provide the right services for these young people, we should be driven by the demands they require to make their lives bett…
Children with care experience have less chance of good educational qualifications, and placement far from school makes that even worse. 'Nothing about us without us' — the category of those most directly affected by these regulations must be named in the Bill, not left as a ministerial afterthought.My Lords, I support Amendment 117, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Tyler and others. The decision on where a child is cared for in the system is crucial to the child’s life, so we should listen to children with care experience. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, it may affect their ability to keep contact with wider family and friends, and other factors were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. It will make a difference even to their ability to keep in contact with a teacher who they might trust—that can be quite important in children’s lives. It can otherwise be very disruptive to their education if they are put a long way from where they previously went to school. As we know, children with care experience usually have less of a chance to get good educational qualifications than other children, and that has an effect on their whole-life chances. As my noble friend says, it cannot be left to the Secretary of State under the title of “such other persons”. The category of those most directly affected by these regulations must be named in the Bill, and it is vital that children have the confidence that they will be heard. The slogan, “Nothing about us without us”, is very apt in this context.
Nothing about us without us. Regional care co-operatives take decision-making further from local authorities, and experts have warned that 'care will need to be taken that these structural reforms do not dilute local accountability mechanisms'. Making sure children are heard in the making of regulations is a necessary counterbalance to that risk.Since we are forming a set for Amendment 117, I will stand up now, having attached my name to it, and will focus chiefly on that amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has stolen my starting line with her final line: nothing about us without us. I first used that phrase in a debate on rather similar amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill. I think that your Lordships’ House and the country are increasingly coming to realise that we have to listen to children far more. In this context, I will cite an interesting case from the past week, where a 14 year-old who had been tricked by his parents into going to Ghana took his parents to court. The Court of Appeal ruled that he should have the right to come back to Britain, as he wanted to do. That is an interesting court case that shows how, generally, our legal system is starting to listen more and more to children. It is important that our legislation does so and that that is in the Bill. This raises issues that I will come back to on a later group, but the basic point about the regional care co-operatives is that they will take decision-making further away from local authorities. People have been studying this, and the care review evidence group, for example, said that “care will need to be taken that these structural reforms do not dilute local accountability mechanisms”. Making sure that children are actually heard in the making of regulations is in some way a counterbalance to the risk that quite a lot of experts have identified in taking this approach.
Areas are already using informal co-operation agreements — do we really need this legislation to make it happen? Amendment 116A probes the power in Clause 12 for the Secretary of State to add to local authority strategic accommodation functions by regulation — the department's own memorandum calls it 'akin to a Henry VIII power'. Why not wait until the pathfinders are evaluated before taking that open-ended power? And Amendment 117A would require Ofsted to inspect regional care co-operatives and bring a spotlight to unregistered provision — without that scrutiny there is no independent check on whether the new structures are working for children.My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 116A, 117A and 119ZA in my name. As we have heard, the proposals to create regional care co-operatives came from the independent review into children’s social care. In principle, we support them. However, we are aware that a number of regions are already using informal co-operation agreements, so I question whether we need more legislation to make this happen. Maybe the Minister can comment on this when she sums up. The Secretary of State is taking the power to direct areas to create one of three models of co-operation, but it is important that we understand how this will work in practice, because, presumably, if areas are not adopting this approach voluntarily, there would be significant barriers and potentially good reasons for doing so. Can the Minister clarify those few points when she closes? The Local Government Association has stated its support for the narrower requirements of a regional care co-operative, as being used by the pathfinder areas —namely, on “strategic planning and placements for children with more complex needs”. However, the Bill states in proposed new Section 22J(3)(c) that regional care co-operatives will be responsible for commissioning “the provision of accommodation for children being looked after by the local authority”. There is a real worry about mission creep and confusion over responsibilities, which I have tried to address through my Amendment 119ZA, as has my noble friend Lady Cash through her Amendment 117B. Will the Minister comment on the concern expressed by organisations such as Barnardo’s that this model will squeeze out some of the smaller providers, increasing even further the dependence on independent providers in the private sector, many of whom, as we know, have a combination of very high profitability and high debts? Can the Minister confirm the start date for the pathfinders, and when there will be publicly available evidence from them, either via the evaluation or from any other d…
The placement market is dysfunctional and some private providers are making excessive profits from our most vulnerable children — the MacAlister review and the Competition and Markets Authority were explicit about that. Regional care co-operatives will help local authorities analyse what accommodation is needed across a region, publish sufficiency strategies, recruit foster parents and commission care places. The existing duties — under Sections 22, 22C and 22G of the Children Act 1989 — are not being met because the market has prevented authorities from fulfilling them; the co-operatives are the remedy. Individual placement decisions will remain with local authorities throughout.My Lords, before I turn to the amendments in the first group, I want to be clear, as many noble Lords have recognised, that the measures in Clause 10, together with those that we will come to later in Clauses 12 to 18, are part of an overarching, broad-ranging strategy to fix the market for placements for looked-after children. The review conducted by my honourable friend Josh MacAlister, which several noble Lords have quite rightly referenced, and the report from the Competition and Markets Authority were explicit that the placement market is dysfunctional and that some private providers are making excessive profits from placements for our most vulnerable children. We are now taking concerted action to address this, including through measures in the Bill, but also through a wide range of non-legislative measures, to deliver a broader range of providers in the market so that local authorities have more options when finding the right place for children in their care. These must be the right homes in the right parts of the country, so that children do not have to move miles from their communities and support networks, as many noble Lords have referenced in this debate. These homes must be delivered at a sustainable cost to the taxpayer by providers no longer making excessive profits. A failure to address the dysfunction in the system has led to many of the issues that noble Lords are rightly identifying today, which they hope and expect us to respond to—not only, I suspect, in these clauses relating to regional care co-operatives but more broadly in the action that we are taking to fix that dysfunctional market. Amendments 108 to 116 in the name of my noble friend Lady Longfield seek to amend the definition of local authorities’ strategic accommodation functions as defined by this clause to ensure that it meets the current and future needs of looked-after children. This and my noble friend’s contribution exactly get to the crux of the problems we are trying to solve h…
- To be clear: in the department's own memorandum it describes this power as being *akin* to a Henry VIII power.
I was aware that my remarks may not have been clear that, in the department’s own memorandum, it describes this power as being akin to a Henry VIII power.
- The scope of regulations is limited to functions covered by Sections 22A, 22C and 22G of the Children Act 1989 — that is not a blank cheque. The scrutiny committee has already looked at these delegated powers and we will respond to it.
I will certainly take advice and look carefully at that, but I assure the Committee that the appropriate committee, the name of which escapes me, has of course looked in detail at the delegated provisions within the legislation and we will be responding to the committee and covering off any issues that might be of the sort of concern that the noble Baroness raises. I hope to provide some further reassurance on that. First, the scope of regulations is limited to those local authority functions covered by specific sections of the Children Act 1989, namely Section 22A, the duty to accommodate looked-after children; Section 22C, how looked-after children should be accommodated by the local authority; and Section 22G, the duty to ensure sufficient accommodation for looked-after children.
Once a child moves from its home local authority to another, the sending authority completely loses contact — even though it retains legal responsibility. Can anything be done to ensure the two authorities are actively in dialogue about what is happening to that child?My Lords, I apologise for not being present at the beginning of the discussion of these amendments. One issue that I was worried about many years ago, and I would be surprised if it did not happen still, is the fact that once a child moves from its local authority area to a local authority somewhere else, the sending local authority completely loses contact with anything that happens to the child—even though, as I understand it, it retains a certain responsibility. I wonder whether anything can be done to make sure that each local authority—that which the child comes from and that which the child goes to—is actually in touch and discussing what happens.
- Legal accountability remains with the placing authority, but that does not mean there should not be practical engagement — that should be good practice. Clarity about where responsibility rests must extend to the regional care co-operatives as well.
As usual, my friend the noble and learned Baroness makes an important point about the application of the law in this particular case. I think, as she suggests, that legal accountability and responsibility remains with the authority placing the child, but that does not mean that, in practical terms, there should not be engagement, and I would have thought that that would have been good practice. I also think that it is important that there is clarity about where the responsibility stays. That goes for the care co-operatives as well.
- A comprehensive response that covered a lot of ground. The RCCs will help local authorities cope with the pressures we face. I will look carefully at what the Minister said, discuss further with her if needed, and may return to this on Report.
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the extremely comprehensive response that she has given the Committee; it lasted a while but she covered a lot of ground on a lot of amendments. I certainly agree with what she had to say about the wider strategy of trying to fix the current placement market and, above all, making sure that the right home is in the right place for children around the country. She certainly gave me some comfort on the role of the RCCs and the way in which they are going to be able to help local authorities and work with them and take pressure off them. I am grateful that she mentioned that there is going to be work in progress to look at the consequences of the abolition of NHS England. On the role of the ICBs, I should have been aware of Section 10 of the Children Act 2004, because I was on that Bill committee many years ago and I remember the clauses about multi-agency safeguarding and the other bodies that are involved in this process. I am very grateful to the Minister. I am sure that colleagues here will look very carefully at what she said. If need be, I for one will want to discuss this further with her and will look carefully in more detail at her reply, and maybe come back to this on Report. In the meantime, I thank her and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
- The amendments are directed at a specific gap: understanding where these children are actually going and how those placements work out — not the aggregate data that already exists. Think what it means for a child to be taken from home and placed with strangers, to wake in the morning and come downstairs in a strange house. There is cross-party consensus on this, backed by the MacAlister review and numerous charities. Why would we not collect this data?
I thank the Minister for giving way. I had actually looked at all the data currently collected, and I am grateful for the summary given to the Committee just now, but the amendments are directed at understanding where these children are going and how those specific placements work out, so that need can be assessed and planning for future need can be made. They are also directed specifically at the numbers of places and the children who go into those. I appreciate that burdening any party with more data collection is never attractive, but this is about children being taken from home and placed with strangers—which, even as an adult, does not bear thinking about—and waking in the morning and coming downstairs in a strange home. I really implore the Government to give some consideration to the basic humanity of this. It has cross-party support in this House and has been supported by numerous charities and by the Labour MP Josh MacAlister’s independent review. There is a consensus. What I am not hearing—and perhaps I am missing it—is why we would not seek this data so that we can improve the outcomes for these children.
- The Government are not saying current data collection is sufficient — that is precisely why we intend to improve it, as set out in *Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive*. We will publish better placement data on GOV.UK and bring forward a national data programme addressing gaps in regional data, particularly around the underlying costs of placements.
I am always willing to allow noble Lords to intervene, but I was actually coming to another paragraph in my speaking note, which I hope addresses the point that the noble Baroness makes. The Government are not suggesting that the current analysis or collection of data is sufficient. That is why we intend to improve our data on placements, as we set out in Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive. This will give local authorities better information, as she suggests, to assess need and the longer-term demand for placements and to support the delivery of the functions that we are asking regional care co-operatives to carry out under Clause 10. It will also be published on GOV.UK. I do not know whether that assures the noble Baroness that the Government do have some humanity but I take her point, and that is why I was coming to the reassurance—I hope—that the Government do want to ensure that we have better data, including being able to address the issues around outcomes that she identified. That is why we will also be bringing forward a national data programme that will address the gap in national and regional data, particularly around the underlying costs of children’s social care placements, but we will continue to think about how we can improve the data that is available to us.
A substantial number of teenage looked-after children are accommodated in adult homes and hostels. They should not be.My Lords, a substantial number of teenage looked-after children are accommodated in adult homes and hostels. They should not be. I beg to move.
It is nothing short of a scandal that some of our most vulnerable children are regularly placed in illegal, unregistered children's homes. Children in registered homes get Ofsted inspections at least once a year and an independent visit every month; those in unregistered settings get nothing — no check on care quality, no check on the adults providing it. The previous Government banned unregulated placements for under-16s in 2021 but left 16 and 17 year-olds exposed, then in 2023 introduced standards for 'supported accommodation' that legitimised placing teenagers in hostels, bed and breakfasts, shared houses and even caravan parks. These are still legally children. MacAlister recommended ending unregistered homes — it has not happened. Time to act.The noble Lord was too quick for all of us. I want to speak on the same subject as he did, that of unregistered accommodation— I have been caught unawares and have the wrong notes in front of me. I felt it was appropriate to make this point in Amendment 144, in my name, because it really is nothing short of a scandal that some of the most vulnerable children are regularly placed in illegal, unregistered children’s homes. These settings have the least amount of scrutiny, and as a result, children are at increased risk of harm. Children living in registered children’s homes benefit from the safeguards that regulation brings. Ofsted inspects registered homes at least once a year, and an independent person must visit these homes every month. They check the running of the home and assess whether children are being kept safe—as absolutely anybody would have a right to expect. But children living in unregistered children’s homes do not have these safety nets. There is also no process for assessing the quality of their care or the suitability of the adults providing that care. As my noble friend the Minister said in summing up on the last group of amendments, unregistered means no inspections. Surely this is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue. Children aged 16 to 17 in residential care are treated very differently from their slightly younger peers. In 2021, the previous Government introduced provisions through secondary legislation to prohibit unregulated accommodation for children in care aged 15 or under, but not for those aged 16 or 17. Two years later, the previous Government introduced what they deemed appropriate standards for supported accommodation for children in care and care leavers. These statutory instruments legitimised, and therefore to some extent encouraged, the increasingly shameful practice of placing children in unregulated, unsafe hostels, bed and breakfasts, shared homes, and even, in some cases, caravan parks. All those settings leave them…
Making boarding school places available to looked-after children — or those on the edge of care — is one of those rare policies that can address three problems at once without extra cost: 52 children tracked in a Norfolk DfE study produced 33 coming off the at-risk register, better educational outcomes than the national figures, and lower costs than the foster-care or care-home route. It should be an option, not a default — but at present it is not even routinely available.My Lords, my Amendment 119 would provide further opportunities for looked-after children, or those on the edge of care, to have access to boarding school places where appropriate. The principles of this amendment are the same as those of my Amendment 82, on children in or going into kinship care, except that the financial benefits may be stronger for non-kinship care. For example, kinship carers who care for children under special guardianship orders or child arrangement orders are not automatically entitled to the same financial support as foster carers. I do not want to repeat word for word everything I said on Amendment 82—both the Ministers present were in their places at the time—but I will give a brief summary. Noble Lords participating in this Bill know the huge task that confronts carers when taking on children who are more often than not from broken homes and carrying the emotional scars of the unhappiness that has emanated from this breakdown. This is why I am keen to give so much more oxygen to the prospect of offering boarding school places to children in or on the edge of care. I gave the example of the report carried out by the Norfolk local authority in conjunction with the DfE when I was the Minister responsible for this area. I will not repeat everything that was said, but one of the most important pieces of data was that, of the 52 children who were tracked during the three or so years over which this study was carried out, 33 came off the at-risk register. That is the most tremendous result, and I suspect there are not many other examples of particular types of care delivering such a significant improvement in the welfare of those children. There are two other advantages, one of which is financial. The costs are substantially lower than that of the foster care or care home route. Also, the educational outcomes in this study were better for the children than the national figures. This is one of those rare moments when a policy can deal with three p…
- The amendment refers to a boarding school place 'in a state secondary school in their local authority area'. Can you confirm that such schools exist in every local authority area? If they do not, how would this be put into practice?
Regarding cross-party support, I am willing to indicate support, but I want to clarify a point the noble Lord makes in his amendment about a boarding school place “in a state secondary school in their local authority area”. Can he tell us that such schools exist in every local authority area? If they do not, how would this be put into practice?
- There are around 35 state boarding schools nationally, and private schools offering Royal SpringBoard scholarships and bursaries provide additional options. We cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good — if a good boarding place is reasonably accessible to the child's home and to their foster or kinship carer, that is what matters. The Norfolk study showed a strong correlation between length of tenure and improvements in well-being: three years of continuity made a tremendous difference.
My Lords, there are around 35 state boarding schools in the country, but there are also a number of private boarding schools that are ready to provide support, which is why I mentioned the Royal SpringBoard scholarships and bursaries that are available. I completely accept the noble Lord’s point—that people need to be kept, wherever possible, near their homes—but we need flexibility. We must not make the perfect the enemy of the good. If there is a good boarding school place that is reasonably accessible to the child’s home, but more importantly to the foster carer or kinship carer, then that is what matters. But I take onboard what the noble Lord said. In her summing-up of Amendment 82, the Minister spoke about stability of setting, and she was very right. The Norfolk study showed that there was a very strong correlation between improvements in those children’s well-being and the length of tenure. The study showed that three years of continuity made a tremendous difference. I hope the Minister will consider this amendment.
- The use of unregistered homes is a national scandal: last September there were 775 children in unregistered settings, including children under ten and children who had been there for over two years — some in caravans — at an average cost of over £1,500 a day, totalling more than £400 million a year to local authorities. We would not allow it for our own children; we cannot allow it for those in the state's care. The sufficiency duty must be strengthened to require local authorities to take 'all reasonable steps' to keep children living within or near their area — the Welsh Government have already reformed in exactly this direction.
My Lords, before speaking to my Amendment 129, to which the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and my noble friend Lord Storey have added their names, I first add my very strong support for Amendment 144 by the noble Lord, Lord Watson. I am sorry that I did not manage to add my name to it; it deals with such an important issue. I was shocked to read a report by the Children’s Commissioner, which said that last September, there were 775 children in unregistered homes, including children under the age of 10, children who had spent over two years in those homes and children in entirely inappropriate unregistered settings such as caravans. Staggeringly, the average cost was over £1,500 a day, with an estimated total annual cost to local authorities of over £400 million. As the Children’s Commissioner said, and I very much agree with her, the use of these homes is a national scandal. Vulnerable children are being failed. We would not allow it for our own children, and we simply should not allow it for those for whom the state is corporate parent. Therefore, I very strongly support phasing out unregistered accommodation. My Amendment 129 is closely linked to the discussion we had on the first group about children being placed far from home. It would amend “the sufficiency duty to prevent children being moved far away from home” when that is not in their best interests. We heard a lot of the arguments in the previous group, and I will pull out a few specifics. In recent years, there has been a marked and shocking rise in the number of children in care who are moved far away from their support networks and communities. Last year, more than a fifth of all children in care were living more than 20 miles away from home. That might not sound far but, frankly, that is a long way from family and local support networks. In addition, more than 3,000 children were living more than 100 miles from home—that is 4% of all children in care—and more than 800 children under the care of English loca…
Boarding schools should not be the default — the Minister was right about that — but this option must be genuinely available to all children in care. Could the Minister work with Lord Agnew and me to word the legislation so there is no sense of a default, simply an entitlement to be offered this choice?My Lords, I support Amendment 119 tabled by my noble friend Lord Agnew, to which I have added my name. He spoke very persuasively for it. I did read the Minister’s response to the debate last Thursday on Amendment 82, which would similarly have made it compulsory for children in kinship care to be offered such a place. I agree with her answer in pretty much all respects. She recognised the positive impact that boarding schools can have, but they should not be the default for all children living in kinship care. She cited the importance of stability in education and friendships to well-being and educational outcomes. Moving schools would, of course, be potentially highly detrimental. I ask the Minister: could she work with me and my noble friend Lord Agnew to word this legislation to remove any sense of default? My aim is simply to make this option available to all, as this is currently not the case. The arguments and evidence—for making the boarding school option available to both children in kinship care and children in local authority care—overlap significantly in these amendments. My noble friend Lady Berridge eloquently made the case for Amendment 82 when I was unable to be here, so I will not repeat it.
The Government's own policy paper *Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive* commits to looking at planning reform so providers can more easily set up homes where they are most needed. The CMA's 2022 study found planning permission is one of the main barriers to opening new children's homes — local opposition is often based on outdated assumptions, and smaller homes (now averaging three places) are competing directly with families for exactly the same properties. Is this planning reform still under consideration, and if so, which legislation does the Government think is the right vehicle?My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendment 134B in my name and to support a number of amendments in this group. I make it clear that this is a probing amendment. I appreciate that the Government have a wider agenda in relation to planning—so it may be that this Bill is not the right vehicle—but I did want to pick up on a proposal from the Government’s policy statement Green Paper, Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive, which the Minister has already mentioned. It states that the Government will look at “options to reform the planning process to enable providers to more easily set up homes where they are most needed”. Specifically, it says that they will “consider potential legislative options or further changes to support the delivery of small children’s homes”. We know that we have seen a move away from the larger homes, with the most recent government statistics showing that homes registered within the previous year were for three places on average, and four places was the average for all active or suspended children’s homes as of March 2024. We also know—and it has been quite clearly demonstrated—that we need more capacity and that children are being placed in unsuitable accommodation. On this point, I very much support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 118, as well as Amendment 114, which attempts to deal with the problem of unregulated homes. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, have said, it is quite hard to believe that these homes exist, but exist they do. That is a capacity issue and something that, frankly, we are just going to have to do deal with. I appreciate that the Government announced investment into the children’s homes estate last week; that is, of course, welcome and a good thing. However, there are additional measures that could deal with capacity, and these relate to planning regulations. The CMA’s 2022 study, which has already been mentioned, found that one of the main barriers to opening new home…
- Amendment 165 would require local authorities to notify the GP and school when a child is placed in temporary accommodation. A head teacher in Lewisham described it starkly: 'We only hear, by accident, only by us being nosey and being at the gate in the morning, or them being late, tired or hungry, is how we find out.' Three specific things need to happen: councils must send notification as a matter of course (the LGA's own guidance does not currently mention schools or GP practices specifically); the technology must be upgraded (Manchester currently does this by individual email, not a system push); and training across schools and primary care must improve. Government Ministers met with the APPG on 13 May and the initial response was positive — can the Minister update the Committee on where those discussions stand?
I put my name to Amendment 129 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, which I am happy to do. She has made a strong case for amending the sufficiency duty or doing something similar to make it clear that moving children beyond a certain geographical distance from their normal base is deleterious to their well-being and health in every way possible. I also put my name to Amendment 144 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson. We have all heard what is going on and I think we all agree that it is unconscionable and appalling. The question, as was put very aptly by the noble Lord, is what action we are going to take to do something about it. The fact that it exists is bad enough, so we need to have a clear plan to do something about it. I will focus my remarks primarily on Amendment 165 in my name. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Hampton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for putting their names to it. It is to do with temporary accommodation and the effect that being moved into temporary accommodation has on young children. This is a topic that the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation, which is headed by Dame Siobhain McDonagh, has long campaigned for. In fact, on 13 May Dame Siobhain met the Minister’s colleague Janet Daby, Minister at the Department for Education, and Rushanara Ali, Minister at the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government, specifically to explore what can be done about this issue. The issue, as the amendment’s explanatory statement says clearly, is that the new clause would establish a notification system requiring local authorities to alert schools and GPs when a child is placed in temporary accommodation. To explain why that is important, this is a direct quote from a head teacher in Lewisham about this phenomenon: “On the ground, the impact of TA on children is colossal. We only hear, by accident, only by us being nosey and being at the gate in the morning, or them being…
- Boarding school should be in the toolkit — as a boarding-school girl myself I know it can work very well, including for children whose family members could not have them full-time. On unregistered accommodation: I cannot believe that local authorities placing children in unregistered settings are complying with their duty under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 to promote the welfare of the child. And 16 and 17 year-olds in adult accommodation face a serious question about who else they will meet there.
My Lords, I support Amendments 118, 144 and 165 in particular. Dealing with perhaps the least important of the three: as a boarding school girl, I think that boarding school can often be a very sensible place to send children. I would not want to see it required for all children—that would be most unsuitable—but boarding school should be in the thoughts of those wondering where to put a child. It might be that it would be possible to keep the child with a particular member of the family if that family member did not have the child for 12 months of the year. Anyone who has been a mother or a father understands that situation. On Amendments 144 and 165, I feel particularly strongly about unregulated accommodation. Under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, there is an obligation on the local authority to promote the welfare of the child. I cannot believe that local authorities that send children to unregulated places are complying appropriately with the law. I wonder whether any local authority has ever thought about it. Unregulated accommodation—which has been set out so well already—is not, in fact, checked. If one thinks about it, the idea that 16 and 17 year-olds are not being checked as to how they are getting on—bearing in mind, as has been said, that they are still technically children and are at a very vulnerable age, particularly if they are in care—is extraordinary. The other point is that even adult accommodation seems very unsuitable. Who are they going to meet in adult accommodation? Although it may be checked, one wonders how much checking there is. I hope the Minister will listen to these particular matters very strongly.
- Amendment 170 focuses on a gap the Minister's earlier answer did not close: the data on sufficiency in care homes overall that is *not* already required under the Children Act 1989. A body of science around attachment and trauma now emphatically supports secure and stable environments — and, in the wake of the grooming gangs revelations and the Casey report, we know that children who have not been securely attached and have moved repeatedly through care are the most vulnerable to predators. Why would we not collect the data to address this?
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 170 and lend my support to the other eminently sensible amendments in this group. They all, individually, beg the question: why would we not? I implore the Government to consider these gaps, which have been so carefully thought through and proposed before the Committee today. If Committee serves any purpose, it must be to collaborate and work for the benefit of the children we are talking about. I will not rehearse the points I made on the first group today. The data point, under Amendment 170, drives at the same point. I ask the Minister to think carefully, because I had almost anticipated that her previous answer would address the data required already under the Children Act. So I carefully focused this amendment on the gaps where the data is not already required—that is to address sufficiency in care homes overall. A body of science around attachment and trauma now emphatically supports the case for providing secure and stable environments for young people—including young adults, because the brain is not fully developed until well into the 20s. This debate is very timely, in the wake of the grooming gangs story and the Casey report, which has just been published. When children have not been securely attached and have been moved into and out of care, they are at their most vulnerable. They are the most susceptible to risk, the most vulnerable to being preyed on and the most easily seduced by any kindness whatever, so the wolf in sheep’s clothing is a particularly dangerous scenario. It is time that we dispense with unregulated accommodation, and I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for her comments and her extensive experience of that.
As a teacher, these amendments are so sensible you are surprised they are not already law.My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 165. In the spirit of brevity pioneered by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I also support Amendment 118 in his name and Amendment 144 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Russell of Liverpool. As a teacher, I can only quote the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson of Welton: they are so sensible that you are surprised they are not law already.
More and more homeless families are being placed in temporary accommodation, and every child in that situation is at a disadvantage. This amendment simply requires the local authority to notify the GP and school — it is good practice and some councils, like Manchester, are already doing it. I cannot see why it should not be required of all.My Lords, I added my name to those of the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Hampton, on Amendment 165. It replicates an amendment tabled in the other place that got strong support. The background is that, sadly, more and more homeless people are being accepted under the homelessness legislation and placed in temporary accommodation. By the nature of that legislation, most of those people are families and they will have children. A child in temporary accommodation is obviously in a less advantageous position than a child coming from a stable background. So we need to do all we can to make sure that child gets access to the services that he or she is entitled to before—hopefully, not after too long—they are placed in suitable long-term accommodation. The amendment simply requires the local authority to notify the GP and the school of the child’s circumstances. As my noble friend Lady Sanderson said, this should be good practice and Manchester does it. If I were the head of a primary school, I would want to know which of my pupils were in temporary accommodation. If I were a GP, I would also want to know which of my child patients were in temporary accommodation. A GP is meant to treat the patient as well as the illness. There are real risks of a child being off-rolled by a school because the head simply did not know that they were in temporary accommodation, they had decided to stay at the same school from which they were moved and the bus just takes longer to get there. Likewise, if they are not registered with a GP, they may miss out on prescriptions and all the other universal services that they are entitled to. So this simply seeks the establishment, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said, of a formal notification protocol. After the debate—again, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, referred to this—there was a meeting with the Ministers concerned. Looking at the record of that meeting, it does not seem to me that there were any game-changers that meant that this could…
- One statistic: in the year to September 2024, 80 children in temporary accommodation died. The National Child Mortality Database shows temporary accommodation was listed as a causal factor in 74 child deaths between 2019 and 2024. That speaks directly to why the GP notification in this amendment matters.
My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 165, but as three noble Lords have already spoken to it, I will be brief. I declare my involvement with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation. Here is one stat to feed into our debate. In the year to September 2024, 80 children who were in temporary accommodation died, and the figures from the National Child Mortality Database from 2019 to 2024 show that, for children who died, temporary accommodation was listed as a causal factor in their death in 74 cases. That obviously speaks to the GP issue. Many noble Lords—I can see quite a few in this Chamber—take part in Learn with the Lords, the House of Lords education programme. We have many new Members of the House, so I want to take this chance to commend to all the newer Members who may not know about it what a great programme it is. One of the things we are doing is taking news about the House of Lords out around the country into schools, but it is also a chance to encounter and speak to teachers and head teachers, and share with them what we are doing here in your Lordships’ House and get their reaction. I have not got permission, so I will not identify the person too clearly, but in the Midlands I was speaking to a head teacher at a school serving a very deprived area and I told her about this amendment, and she just went, “Yes!” Many people might think that surely the school will already know, but children and parents may feel that this is a cause of shame. There is no reason why they should, but none the less, the reality is that they may well feel it is a cause of shame, and go to great lengths to try to hide the fact. So it is important that the school, as well as the GP, be notified. As we have had a huge outbreak of agreement, I shall briefly express my reservations about Amendment 119, about boarding school places. Joy Schaverien, the therapist, wrote a book, whose subtitle is The Psychological Trauma of the “Privileged” Chi…
The Government's own policy paper commits to reviewing the planning regime for children's homes. The CMA specifically recommended considering whether smaller homes — those with fewer than a specified number of residents — should be exempt from full planning permission. That reform would help correct the market by getting more homes open where they are needed, and providers are currently losing properties to rival bidders while planning applications drag on.My Lords, I add my support to Amendment 134B, in the name of my noble friend Lady Sanderson. As she said, it seeks to build on the Government’s commitment in Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive to look at options to reform the planning process to enable providers to more easily set up homes where they are most needed and to support the delivery of small children’s homes. To pick up another issue that noble Lords across the Committee have raised on this group of amendments, I should add that that paper also noted that the lack of appropriate and affordable homes in the right places for children means that we are seeing a worrying trend in the rise of the use of unregistered provision. The CMA’s 2022 report on the children’s home market outlined a number of issues with the current planning system and specifically recommended that the Government do what my noble friend suggests in her amendment, and consider “whether the distinction, for the purposes of the planning regime, between small children’s homes and domestic dwelling houses should be removed”. The CMA concluded that the easing of planning restrictions would lead to both an increase in number and a better geographical spread of children’s homes. On the basis that the Government have accepted this recommendation and say that they are considering options, I look forward to hearing from the Minister how government thinking has developed, particularly in relation to further planning reforms in this area. Can she outline where, if not in this Bill, they may be intending to take their action?
Having been sent to boarding school from the age of 10, I believe a looked-after child — already displaced — sent to boarding school would simply be shunted from one place and rejected, then shunted to another. I am strongly concerned that boarding school should not be the destination for looked-after children.My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Having been sent to a boarding school for some years from the age of 10, it seems to me that the last place that somebody should go if they are a looked-after child, and therefore already displaced, is a boarding school. They would be shunted to one place and rejected again and shunted to another. I would be very strongly concerned that looked-after children should not be sent to a boarding school.
Capacity planning must pay particular attention to children with the very highest needs — they account for a startlingly large proportion of total care spend and their needs are predicated years in advance. That is precisely why a national capacity plan is needed: we need to know, years ahead, what kind of homes will be required and where, so that providers can get planning permission, recruit staff and actually open them in time.I shall speak to several amendments—to Amendment 170, on a capacity plan, and to Amendment 134B, on planning. I declare my interest as a former Ofsted chief inspector, where I spoke repeatedly over seven years about the issues with sufficiency in many parts of the country, and the urgency of taking action to enable homes to open in the places where they were needed. I support what my noble friend Lady Evans just said, and I will not cover the same points about planning. I will say that the most acute need is partly in the most expensive areas, for obvious reasons, and partly for the children with the highest needs, for whom it is most difficult to configure, recruit, train and get a home open where we need it, when the children are there. We need planning for high needs. I stress that capacity planning should pay particular attention to the very high-needs children, whose care accounts for a startlingly large proportion of the total spend on care, and whose needs, in the main, are predictable, if not from birth then from very early in life. There is a high level of certainty of that being needed all the way through their childhood, and many of them will, sadly, also be in care homes in their adult lives. We need that focus and urgency to do everything that can be done, and to think intelligently, sufficiently far in advance, to enable homes to open so that, at the point and age at which children need them, they can move to somewhere within a reasonable distance of home. I reassure the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler- Sloss, that the existence of children in unregistered accommodation is a serious concern to Ofsted. We spent a significant amount of our resources on putting pressure on those accepting placements of children to register as children’s homes, as they should. I will speak briefly on a couple of other points. I support the boarding proposal for those for whom such schools are genuinely the right place; it is a way to create stability and a strong p…
Every child in care I have ever asked about their biggest issue gives the same answer: the lack of a constant adult in their lives — the revolving door of people responsible for them. A boarding school gives a child a constant adult, often a housemaster or housemistress. It is not right for everyone, but it should be an option. It can also be remarkably inexpensive compared with the alternatives.I support Amendment 119, in the name of my noble friend Lord Agnew, about the availability of boarding places. I do so as a former south London boy who was, rather unexpectedly, because of family circumstances, sent away to a boarding school—with, I believe, considerable financial help. Pretty much every child in care I have ever spoken to, when I have asked them, as I tend to do when I meet them, what the biggest issue facing them is, replies that it is the lack of a constant adult in their lives—the revolving door of people responsible for them. This leaves issues of lack of trust, which can stay with such children all their lives. In a boarding school, a child has a constant adult—often a housemaster or mistress. I accept that it might not be appropriate for all children, but I agree that children should be offered it. It can be a very inexpensive way in which to look after these children, although obviously that is only a secondary consideration. I have seen the benefit of this in many cases of young people who have experienced boarding, thanks to the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation. I support the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and others about unregistered settings and about children being sent away many miles from their home.
In the 21st century, 'unregistered' or 'unregulated' should never enter our vocabulary for children's accommodation. It is not acceptable for schools and it is not acceptable for homes. I wish I had signed Amendment 144 — the BBC Panorama programme showed looked-after children housed in barges. Unregulated provision is never inspected; anything can happen; these children are not safe. We should not allow it.My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, that all these amendments would enhance the life chances and life opportunities of looked-after children, and they should be seriously considered. In the 21st century, the words “unregistered” or “unregulated” should never enter into our dialogue or vocabulary. It is not acceptable for our schools or our children; whether it is an unregulated school or an unregulated home, it should not exist. I wish that I had signed the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and I apologise for not doing so. The noble Lord is absolutely right to call it scandalous. Noble Lords should have a look at the BBC “Panorama” programme from two or three years ago that looked at looked-after children in unregulated schools. Never mind caravans—some of them were being housed in barges. Imagine that in the winter. Unregulated provision is never inspected, and anything can go on in them. The children are not safe—we should not allow it to happen. Of course, Ofsted does not inspect them either. We owe it to our children to give them something better than that. I agree with my noble friend Lady Tyler that we cannot do that overnight, but we can make a stand and say that we are not going to have children in unregistered provision and we will phase it out. That would be a testimony to the current Government. On Amendment 129 from my noble friend Lady Tyler, to which I added my name, everything that she says almost ties in with that of the noble Lord, Lord Watson; they are very similar on what they say. I turn to Amendment 119 from the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. I think that the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Bennett, are looking at a stereotypical view of boarding schools. I would like to take them both to Liverpool College, which was an independent school and is now an academy, and where the local authority buys in places for looked-after children. The children get accommodation of high quality, but they also get adults who p…
Placement of under-16s in unregulated accommodation was banned in September 2021, and regulations in April 2023 introduced national standards and registration requirements for 16 and 17 year-olds in supported accommodation. All looked-after children under 18 must now be in Ofsted-regulated or otherwise regulated accommodation. The Government do not believe Amendment 144 is necessary and are concerned it would remove the option for 16 and 17 year-olds to develop independence in a safe, supported environment. On Amendment 165, Government Ministers are continuing to engage on the notification question and we recognise that this is ultimately about a culture shift — agencies must talk to each other. Clause 13 gives Ofsted additional enforcement powers and monetary penalties for those who run unregistered settings, which is paramount.My Lords, the amendments in this second group comprise new clauses on accommodation and capacity in children’s residential care, and seek to improve the capacity and, of course, most importantly, the quality of provision for children and young people. I really welcome this rich debate. Time constraints will be upon me, but a lot of excellent points have been made and I will try to pick out the main ones that hold the whole group together. Amendment 118, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would prevent local authorities accommodating looked-after children in homes or hostels where young people over the age of 18 also live. The placement of children under 16 in settings other than children’s homes and foster care, or other limited, regulated settings, has, as we have heard, been banned since September 2021. In April 2023, regulations were introduced for supported accommodation for 16 and 17 year-olds, setting national standards and registration requirements for providers. These regulations have been put in place to ensure that 16 and 17 year-olds can be placed in Ofsted-regulated, good-quality accommodation. If a provider is registered, local authorities can accommodate these older children in that accommodation, which may also be used for over-18s. The local authority will consider this when deciding on the suitability of the accommodation for the child. Looked-after 16 to 17 year-olds will continue to reside in foster placements or children’s homes if this best meets their needs. I will come back to that point on further amendments. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, for tabling Amendment 119 on boarding school places. I recognise that he is determined to put more oxygen into this space—this is the second time in just a few days that we have discussed this. Of course the Government want to ensure that all children are given the best possible opportunities to succeed, and we recognise how transformational boarding schools have been for some young people and can b…
- They are meeting with Minister Georgia Gould next week — hopefully the purse strings will be loosened.
I hope I can take it as good news that they are meeting next week with Minister Georgia Gould, so hopefully the purse strings will be loosened.
- There is no reason local areas cannot make these arrangements work. Agencies in the past have sometimes failed to even know children were in a house they attended — that is the shocking result of not joining up. The Bill's provisions will drive the culture shift that makes notification normal. On Amendment 170, the Government's national capacity plan will highlight where investment is most needed, including on distance placements.
The noble Lord may say that. In my personal experience, there is no reason why local areas cannot put these arrangements in place. There have been circumstances with agencies in the past—I am sure this does not happen now—where police have gone into a situation of domestic violence, for example, and not even known that there were children hiding under the beds upstairs. That is the shocking result of a lack of joining up—of agencies not speaking to each other. Provisions in the Bill will go a long way to making sure that this becomes normal—a culture shift. It is normal to tell a school if one of its young people has a change of circumstances that could affect them in many different ways. I am delighted that Government Ministers are coming together, and we will await the outcome with interest. Amendment 170 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, concerns the publication of a national capacity plan for children’s homes intended to highlight the issue of distance placements. I highlight the Government’s commitment to supporting local authorities to meet their sufficiency duty through a range of reforms that will boost system capacity and better meet the needs of children in their areas. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, and others added to the discussions on this amendment. While the amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish an annual national capacity plan, it would also take significant local authority resource to collect, collate and submit additional information on an annual basis to inform the plan, all at a time when their resources for children’s services are rightly focused on implementing reforms to actively improve services. A range of complex contributing factors across the children’s social care system can lead to the use of distance placements, which the Government are addressing through reforms in the Bill and investment in fostering kinship care and local authority children’s homes. Paramount in these deci…
- Amendment 144 was the most important amendment in this group. Placing children in unregulated accommodation is unacceptable — we are simultaneously taking powers in this Bill to deal with unregistered schools. The cost and the lack of oversight make this untenable, especially when Clause 37 would give the same local authorities making these placements the power to override parental judgment about their children's education.
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, for that comprehensive reply. I think the most important amendment in this group was Amendment 144. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, we should not be looking at placing children in unregulated accommodation. We are taking powers in this Bill to deal with unregulated schools—quite rightly, and I hope a great deal better than we have in the past. The idea that we are putting children into unregulated homes, or, as one of my amendments will address later, unregulated alternative provision, is really not acceptable. In Clause 30, we are giving power to the same local authorities that are making these placements to override parental judgment as to the best interests of their child. We really need to get our thinking straight in this area. Unregulated accommodation is not acceptable, particularly when we are talking about people charging at the level they are. We ought to be doing something clear about that in the Bill. I am glad that the Government say that they aim to end this practice, and that it should be done away with, but we need a stronger commitment than that. I was glad to hear the support for boarding schools. I had a miserable time at my boarding school. I would rather have been on the barge of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, frankly, such was the quality of accommodation. But I have seen the hugely transformational effect it can have when it works well, so it is very much a matter of choosing the right child for the right school. I hope my noble friend Lady Sanderson of Welton will pursue her campaign when it comes to the Planning Bill, because we need to be sharper than we are. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Russell, will pursue Amendment 165, which is so clearly achievable. If we are moving towards a consistent identifier for children, this is just the sort of thing that ought to be being done. My noble friend Lady Cash was told that it would be a burden on local authorities to collect…
- Clause 13 concerns some of the most vulnerable children in the country. Children deprived of their liberty face severe and immediate risks; two-thirds experience restraint; the majority live alone. Under Section 25 of the Children Act 1989, looked-after children can be placed in registered secure accommodation, but when there is no place, local authorities turn to the High Court's inherent jurisdiction — crisis placements in unsuitable settings, without the statutory safeguards that Section 25 provides. Clause 13 creates a new statutory framework using 'relevant accommodation' — registered children's homes adapted to deprive a child of liberty in connection with care and treatment. The amendments in this group seek to ensure those children receive the same education, therapeutic treatment and independent oversight as children in secure accommodation, and that the Secretary of State's powers are spelled out on the face of the legislation rather than left to regulations.
My Lords, Clause 11 epitomises both the responsibility and the privilege that we all share as lawmakers in ensuring that the law works as well as possible for children who are extraordinarily vulnerable through no fault of their own. I put on record my gratitude to the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory and the Nuffield Foundation for their expertise and meticulous work in this area, and to Homes2Inspire, the Shaw Trust and Somerset County Council for allowing me to visit a home where up to two children deprived of their liberty can live, so that I could understand these issues better. Children deprived of their liberty face severe and immediate risks from their own actions or the actions of others. They typically face six different types of restrictions and are under constant supervision, and two thirds experience restraint. The majority live on their own. Currently, under Section 25 of the Children Act 1989, children in care can be placed in registered secure accommodation. When this is not possible, local authorities can apply to the High Court for a deprivation of liberty order through their inherent jurisdiction. This often leads to crisis-driven placements in unsuitable settings, does not address the harmful effects of restraint and isolation and is clearly intended as a measure of last resort.
- Children subject to deprivation of liberty orders are routinely handcuffed during transport by some privatised providers of secure transport — yes, handcuffed, automatically, as a matter of policy. The Hope Instead of Handcuffs campaign has been calling for a ban on this practice since 2023. My amendment would require a reporting mechanism so Parliament can see the direction of travel and whether the problem is being tackled.
My Lords, Amendment 131, in my name, appears in this group. I will not quite say that it is a pleasure to follow the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, but it was a terribly important contribution, and I can only very much agree with what she said. The issues that she has outlined—about children as young as seven, with two-thirds continuing still at six months—are hugely disturbing. My amendment seeks to address a particular issue concerning children subject to deprivation of liberty orders and children in care in general. As I said to the Ministers when they very kindly had a briefing on the Bill, this arises from a campaign that I encountered in 2023, called Hope Instead of Handcuffs. This campaign came from a small group of people—a single operator of the provision of secure transport for children—who were calling for a ban on the automatic use of handcuffs. Yes, I did say the automatic use of handcuffs, which some privatised providers of secure transport were using on children who were subject to deprivation of liberty orders—or who, as it was described, were on the edges of care. They were being put in handcuffs to be transported. These are not children who have been accused of any crime; these are simply children—very vulnerable children, obviously—who have been subjected to something that I think any of us would find traumatic and disturbing. This reflects testimony that was given in 2021 to the inquiry of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on protecting rights in care settings. Serenity Welfare testified that, as I have just said, many providers of secure transportation services for children who were on the edge of care were using handcuffs as standard. I quote from its testimony: “The practice is unregulated and unmonitored, as there is no obligation on these providers to report any instances of handcuffing to the appropriate authority”. As a result of that campaign in 2023, I and a number of other Members of both Houses wrote to the Governme…
Around 96% of children under a High Court deprivation of liberty order are also looked-after children under the Children Act 1989. The move in Clause 13 to 'relevant accommodation' will regularise the position of the great majority — but what about the remaining 4% who are not looked-after children? They will be left without any statutory route and will continue to rely on the inherent jurisdiction. The Bill needs to confirm that position explicitly.My Lords, Amendment 126, in my name, is in this group. This amendment relates to a discreet issue for children who are under a High Court deprivation of liberty order but who are not also looked-after children under the Children Act. Approximately 96% of those children under a High Court deprivation of liberty order are also looked-after children under the Children Act, but then they end up at the High Court, as there is a shortage of Section 25 secure accommodation. Only in Section 25 accommodation under the Children Act can a looked-after child be restricted of their liberty—that currently means a secure children’s home—so they are also put under a High Court DoL so that the local authority can deprive them of their liberty in non-Section-25-type accommodation. It seems that by the move to the phrasing “relevant accommodation” the Bill will regularise in law their situation, which is that 96% of these young people are currently under that inherent jurisdiction deprivation of liberty order. However, there are currently 4% of children under a High Court deprivation of liberty order who are not also looked-after children under the Children Act. I want to thank the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane. I believe that it was his work that brought in the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, when High Court DoLS—as we would call them—began to be used as a jurisdiction. It is due only to that work that we know that, within that group, we have this little group—the 4%—who are not also looked-after children. Even an amended Section 25 of the Children Act refers only to looked-after children having their liberty being restricted in what would now be known as “relevant accommodation”. They would still be left under the High Court jurisdiction, with fewer safeguards. The whole purpose of Clause 11 is to bring from the inherent jurisdiction these children under a statutory system of protection, safeguards and reviews. This 4% of around 1,280 children last year…
- The children the noble Baroness Lady Berridge describes are obviously among the most vulnerable of all, and it is wrong in principle that they are not treated the same way as every other child in this group. On Amendment 120: if a child under 13 is under a court order, the Secretary of State cannot simply override that order — the court retains jurisdiction. Any framework for these children must be clear about that boundary.
My Lords, what the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, has just said is entirely sensible, and, if I may, I add my voice to it. I did not know about this group of children. It seems wrong in principle that they should not be treated in exactly the same way as all other children in this particularly vulnerable group. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, pointed out, they are quite obviously the most vulnerable of all the children. I declare my interest as patron of the Atkinson unit in Exeter, which is secure accommodation. What I am really standing up for on this is not only to understand and support in principle what the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is saying but to express some concerns. I will just take, as an example, Amendment 120. If this child under the age of 13—and that is a very sad circumstance to have a child under 13—is under an order of the court, the Secretary of State would not be able to deal with it further than suggesting that the court order should be reversed. It is important that, when looking at these amendments, one has to bear in mind that it appears that deprivation of liberty may be able to be made without the introduction of the court. In so far as the court is concerned, I remind the Committee, as a former lawyer and judge, that neither the Home Office, the Department for Education nor any other government department can actually change the law of England other than through the parliamentary process. I have no doubt at all that the Minister knows that perfectly well, but it seems to me we have to be a little careful about the extent of the suggested use of these amendments. I entirely understand what is intended, and it is entirely laudable, but we just need to be very careful as regards in what circumstances and whether there will be a court order. My recollection is that, in the past, Section 25 orders were also made in the family proceedings court. Not a word has been said about that now, and it may be that that does not happen any longer,…
- Where deprivation of liberty orders are used outside secure accommodation, the robust framework of independent reviewing — including independent persons — may simply not be there. Additional safeguards are needed, including those recommended by the former President of the Family Division. Amendment 506B addresses exactly that gap.
My Lords, noble Lords often say in this Chamber that it is a pleasure to follow whichever noble Lord or noble Baroness. I cannot say it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, because, given the depth and detail of what she says and the experience she brings as a former judge—and she always speaks without a note—it is not a pleasure but humbling to be given the role of speaking in her wake, as it were. She is, as ever, extremely impressive and adds so much to our debates. I want to speak to Amendment 506B in my name, on the use of accommodation for deprivation of liberty. When a child is in a secure setting, there is a robust framework for reviewing the suitability of arrangements for deprivation of liberty, including through the appointment of independent persons. Where deprivation of liberty orders are used in other accommodation arrangements, the same safeguards may simply not be there. So there need to be additional safeguards, including, as recommended by the Children’s Commissioner, a record in the looked-after child census, including the type of setting and the length of and reasons for restrictions placed. Also, wherever possible, independent advocacy should be provided for all children where a deprivation of liberty order is being considered or is in place. Clause 11 provides a statutory framework for children to be deprived of their liberty in accommodation other than a secure children’s home through amending Section 25 of the Children Act 1989. The intention is for there to be parity with secure children’s homes in terms of access to legal aid. But the current position for parents and anyone with parental responsibility in these cases is that they are entitled only to means-tested legal aid. Such means tests are very restrictive; research by the Law Society has demonstrated that even those living in poverty can fail the financial eligibility test for legal aid. Many parents are therefore left to navigate these complex le…
- As someone who has made these orders, I recognise their gravity. The former President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, wrote that 'when a system is routinely locking up vulnerable children in highly inappropriate settings because they are too difficult to look after, something is clearly going very, very wrong' — a 'moral failure by the state and by society'. The existing Section 25 of the Children Act 1989 now covers only a fraction of children with complex needs because 'secure accommodation' has been narrowly interpreted by the courts. Clause 13 is an opportunity to do better.
My Lords, I speak as someone who has had to make these orders, and in doing so I recognise that these amendments are of great importance, shining light on the deprivation of liberty jurisdiction which has persisted in England and Wales for perhaps too long. In an article in the Observer just a year ago, there was trenchant criticism from the former President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby. He wrote: “When a system is routinely locking up vulnerable children in highly inappropriate settings because they are too difficult to look after, something is clearly going very, very wrong”. He described this as a “moral failure – by the state and by society”. As has been explained, the existing statutory provision for secure accommodation orders made under Section 25 of the Children Act now covers only a few of those with complex needs and those requiring accommodation because they have to be protected from exploitation or present a risk to others. That is because “secure accommodation” is a term which describes only registered children’s homes specifically approved by the Secretary of State, of which, as we have heard, there are only a limited and increasingly insufficient number available. With the severe shortage of places and the rising need for accommodation for those whose welfare requires some restriction of liberty, that need has had to be met by applications to the High Court for authorisation under the court’s inherent jurisdiction. As places cannot be found in suitable registered homes which are Section 25 compliant, the High Court then has to consider whether an unregistered placement is in the child’s best interests. All too often, the local authority, the child’s guardian in the proceedings and the court have to struggle when considering what is available. The court is faced usually with a short-term crisis, planned for in the short term, and limited services available, and is battling to keep the child safe. In doing so, one is usually presented with on…
- One of the MacAlister review's key emphases — the importance of relationships — could feature far more prominently throughout this Bill. Children in secure settings must be enabled to maintain, strengthen and build family and social relationships. Amendment 133 would require local authorities to publish their arrangements for enabling that to happen for children subject to deprivation of liberty orders.
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Meston, whose wisdom and experience of the court processes in this area are, I am sure, very valuable to the Committee. I will speak to Amendment 133 in my name. I have also added my name to that of my noble friend Lady Barran on Amendment 120. Amendment 133 states: “Information required to be published by a local authority includes information about the authority’s arrangements for enabling children subject to deprivation of liberty orders to maintain, strengthen and build family and social relationships”. This Bill picks up much of the intent of Josh MacAlister’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, but one of its key emphases, the importance of relationships, could feature more prominently throughout. Josh’s review drew on an experts by experience board informing his recommendations: young people and adults who had been through the care system. They said in the foreword that this review was their chance “to reshape the system by placing relationships front and centre”. I was on the design group on that review, and this emphasis came through again and again in evidence—hence the first paragraph of the report, which states: “What we need is a system that … puts lifelong loving relationships at the heart of the care system”. It calls for a reset that “starts with recognising that it is loving relationships that hold the solutions for children and families overcoming adversity”. On an earlier group of amendments focusing on care leavers, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott said we need to make sure that the loving, committed relationships that come to the fore in the family group decision-making process do not fall through the cracks in a child’s care pathway as they walk along it. If the local authority intentionally helps a child or young person to maintain them from day one, these relationships will not only be there when the child leaves but have the potential to transform the whole experience of be…
- Amendment 127 would place a duty on local authorities to provide therapeutic treatment for children subject to a deprivation of liberty order — these children frequently do not meet the threshold for CAMHS yet clearly need support. What is the Government's view on making that duty explicit on the face of the Bill?
My Lords, I will make a couple of points and ask a question. Like others, I have found this both a very humbling and a very disturbing group, which, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has shone a light on a little-understood area and highlighted some disturbing details. It is an area that I now realise I knew far too little about and that has not received anything like the transparency that it should. The two points I want to make are on Amendment 127 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about placing a duty on local authorities to provide therapeutic treatment for children who are subject to a deprivation of liberty order. It reminds me of all the detailed scrutiny that I and other noble Lords gave to the Mental Health Bill during its passage in the first few months of the year. One of the things that was particularly in my mind was that that Bill included four core principles for making decisions about detaining people under the Mental Health Act, and one of those was that it would be of “therapeutic benefit”. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, who told us that for quite a few of the children who would be subject to these deprivation of liberty orders, it would be because of their severe mental health problems. It struck me that there are parallels between the two Bills; and in the same way that we have said in the Mental Health Bill that detention must be of therapeutic benefit, Amendment 127, which is about providing therapeutic treatment for children subject to a deprivation of liberty order, is particularly important.
A deprivation of liberty order for a child should be rare, short and unrepeated — the same principle we apply to homelessness. Several of these amendments address exactly that aspiration. The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory's evidence is meticulous and should be taken seriously; these orders have persisted in a legal grey zone for far too long.My Lords, I have added my name to a number of the amendments in this group; I could probably have added it to all of them. Like other noble Lords, I am very grateful for the work of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, which has been quoted several times. I am ignoring all the careful facts and figures I had prepared for this evening, because most of them have already been given by other noble Lords, and it is a principle here that we do not repeat what has already been said. Rather, I would like to speak to the broad principles and the moral case, and to be brief. I have been struck by the number of parallels with another situation of last resort that I have worked with for many decades now, and that is families who are made homeless. Homelessness should be rare, short and unrepeated and so should a deprivation order for a child. It should not be something that happens very often; it should only ever happen the once; and it should be for the shortest possible time. A number of the amendments in this group, particularly those I have signed up to, would help to ensure that that is the case. When I have been dealing with services for those who have been made homeless, what matters is the quality of service that is provided. I have tabled some amendments to the Renters’ Rights Bill that are around that. Some of these amendments in this group would ensure that children who are deprived of their liberty have a good solid provision of services for them. Finally, when I have been dealing with homelessness, I have heard too many stories where families are trekking across multiple local authority boundaries to get to a school. It is important, as some amendments in this group would tease out, that if we must deprive a child of their liberty, we should do it as close to where they live as possible and as close to where they belong. I will echo the words of one other noble Lord to finish with. I was really struck and impressed by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, reminding us a…
- The Nuffield Foundation briefing was a shock to read — this is not an area that was in my understanding before this debate. When you hear from those with real expertise — former judges and the like — the case for these amendments becomes unanswerable.
My Lords, I realise that, quite often, we are very privileged in this House that, when there is a Bill, we get showered with briefings from all sorts of organisations. Of course, we read them, and then we say, “Oh my goodness, I did not understand this. I did not know about that”. Then, when we come to debate in the Chamber, we get real expertise, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who bring that added understanding and information. In fact, I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, who mentioned Learn with the Lords, and when I do a Learn with the Lords session, and they ask, “Why are you in the Lords?”, I say it is because we have got real people who are experts in the field, and when you listen to them, you say, “Wow”. That is not just in this debate. When I looked at the briefing from the Nuffield Foundation, I was just absolutely shocked. It was not something in my understanding or that I particularly knew about. I do not want to repeat the figures—the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said we should not repeat things—but when you read the briefing, perhaps they do need to be repeated because they are quite shocking. The number of children being deprived of their liberty through the High Court is rising and rising—102 in 2017, and in 2024 it had gone up by 1,100%. These were meant to be last-resort measures, but there were 10 times as many applications to deprive children of their liberty to the High Court as there were applications for secure accommodation orders between July 2022 and March 2023. We have talked a lot about the voice of the child. It has sort of been a mantra of this part of the Bill, and yet only 10% of children were present at hearings considering their case. So where was the voice of the child? The other figure which quite alarmed me was that 89% of parents or carers were not represented at hearings. Of course, these children are not only the most vulnerab…
- These are the most troubled and most expensive children in the system. One reason for the increase in deprivation of liberty orders is the reduction in justice secure beds and tier 4 mental health beds — there is a terrible lacuna for children the health system deems to have 'untreatable personality disorders' but who clearly need safe care. These tensions between local authorities, the health service and the justice system must be crystallised and resolved if Clause 13 is to work.
My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendments 119 to 124 very briefly. We have touched on some very important points, and there is something that still needs to be crystallised. As others have said, these are some of the most troubled children in the system. They are also the ones whose care is probably the most expensive of all. Such specialised arrangements have to be made. We have touched on the tensions here between local authorities, the health service and the justice system. One of the reasons for the increase in the number of orders is the reduction in the number of justice secure beds and also tier 4 mental health beds. We have this terrible lacuna around children whom the health system deems to have, for example, untreatable personality disorders but who very clearly need to be looked after somewhere where both they and others can be kept safe and to have everything that we can do to improve their lives and to help make life work for them on a permanent basis in a healthy, humane way. This is an enormous challenge. I would very much like to hear the Minister explain how the health functions of government are also going to be tied into making the deprivation of liberty scheme work.
- Clause 13 brings more children who would otherwise be placed under the High Court's inherent jurisdiction into a statutory scheme with enhanced safeguards. Government Amendments 125 and 128 also allow Scottish local authorities to seek authorisation in Scottish courts to deprive children of their liberty in relevant accommodation in England. On Amendment 119A, the primary purpose of a residential school is education — Section 25 is for children who need to be prevented from absconding or causing injury; where a child in a residential school requires deprivation of liberty, other mechanisms, including potentially the Court of Protection, can be considered. On Amendment 120A, the existing legal duties on local authorities to promote educational attainment already apply. 'Relevant accommodation' is intended to be closer to communities and families than the current alternatives, which is itself more likely to keep educational opportunities open.
My Lords, as others have said during the course of this important debate, Clause 11 is about provision for some of the most vulnerable children in the country and the importance of ensuring that adequate support and necessary safeguards are available to them. The measures in Clause 11 brought forward by the Government seek to bring more children, who would otherwise be deprived of their liberty under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court, into a statutory scheme where they will benefit from enhanced safeguards and protections. I will say more in response to specific amendments about those enhanced safeguards and protections. The clause provides a statutory framework to authorise the deprivation of liberty of looked-after children in provision other than a secure children’s home where there are not enough places, and which cannot meet the needs of all this cohort. Noble Lords will be aware of the pressing need to ensure that these children are provided with sufficient suitable placements to meet their various needs, including in Scotland. This brings me to government Amendments 125 and 128, which will allow local authorities and others in Scotland to seek authorisation in Scottish courts to deprive children of their liberty in relevant accommodation in England. As noble Lords will be aware, relevant accommodation will have the primary purpose of care and treatment and will also be capable of being used to deprive a child of his or her liberty if required in connection with the provision of care and treatment. We are also making a consequential change to amend the language from “restrict” to “deprive”, to ensure consistency with existing amendments to Section 25 of the Children Act 1989 provided by Clause 11. These amendments will ensure that Scottish local authorities can access all forms of accommodation to enable a child to be deprived of their liberty in a placement that best meets their needs. Amendment 119A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, addre…
- Can the Minister confirm in her letter that there may be a residual group of children for whom the inherent jurisdiction will still be needed — because the legislation may not reach quite far enough?
I thank the Minister. Can she simply confirm in the letter that the position may be that we are left with a residual group of children who will still need the inherent jurisdiction? It might be that the legislation just does not reach quite far enough at the moment.
- I will clarify that in the letter. On Amendment 131: restraint must be used only where appropriate; we take the handcuffing concerns very seriously and will get more detail to come back to the noble Baroness. Providers are under an obligation to use the minimum appropriate restriction.
I will clarify that in the letter. On Amendment 131 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on the important matter of the use of restraint on children in care and subject to deprivation of liberty orders, it is vital that children are safe and that restraint is used only where appropriate, including when they are moving between settings and services. We take these concerns very seriously. We will consider guidance on restraint in due course. However, the question about children being handcuffed remains, and I will endeavour to get more detail about that and to come back to the noble Baroness. Providers, in conjunction with placing authorities, are under an obligation to use the minimum appropriate restriction to keep a child safe.
- Is the Government minded to ensure some kind of annual reporting mechanism to keep track of restraint, as my amendment proposes — so Parliament can see the direction of travel and identify problems before they become crises?
I may be a little too soon, but I wonder whether the Government are minded to ensure that there is, as my amendment would provide, some kind of reporting mechanism to keep track of things. There may be cases where that is necessary. Surely this is something there should be an annual report on so that we can see the direction of travel and whether there is a problem that needs to be tackled.
- Ofsted already manages incidents of restraint case by case under its inspection framework; children's homes regulations require incidents to be recorded and serious ones reported to Ofsted. Inspectors are best placed to scrutinise individual incidents, and an annual aggregated parliamentary report would create additional burden without adding meaningful safeguard value.
Noble Lords are very premature today. I was coming not quite to that but to something that I hope will be satisfactory in relation to that reporting mechanism. Ofsted, as the independent regulator of children’s homes, manages incidents of restraint on a case-by-case basis under its inspection framework. The children’s homes regulations place a requirement on homes to record any incidents of restraint and on the registered person to inform Ofsted of any incident in relation to a child that they consider to be serious. We think that Ofsted inspectors are best placed to scrutinise individual incidents of restraint and the circumstances around them and to ensure that care providers are minimising its use. We are not clear that a yearly report to Parliament aggregating that data would add anything in this case, although it would create an additional burden and risk distraction from this important work. It would, in fact, probably be significantly less effective in safeguarding children and recording the incidents than the Ofsted approach currently being used. Amendment 133 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, seeks to promote family and other social relationships for children subject to deprivation of liberty orders by publishing local authority plans to support children in that regard. As mentioned in respect of earlier amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, I reiterate the Government’s agreement that, wherever possible, it is vital for a child’s welfare to have positive family and social relationships. Given that the Children Act 1989 and the supporting guidance already seek to ensure that family and other relationships for looked-after children are promoted while keeping children safe, and that this forms part of Ofsted’s inspections of local authorities, I am not sure it is appropriate or necessary to increase the burden on local authorities by mandating them to publish that information. I recognise the points made by the noble Lord, or it may have be…
- In my experience at the Atkinson secure accommodation unit, every child needs at least two carers — some need three. How will a standard children's residential care home manage a child who is deprived of their liberty? These will be extreme cases.
This may be a rather silly question, but in my experience of the Atkinson secure accommodation unit, every child needs at least two carers. There are even children who need three. I wonder how a children’s residential care home will manage a child deprived of liberty. It will be an extreme case and the child will be unbelievably difficult to look after.
- We believe it is possible — sometimes with technology to help maintain security, and certainly requiring a certain staffing level. For many of these children, relevant accommodation is preferable to deprivation of liberty under the inherent jurisdiction: it offers better proximity to community, better access to education and better maintenance of family contact.
Nevertheless, we believe that it is possible. On the definition of relevant accommodation, we believe that it is possible to find those sorts of homes—sometimes supported by the use of technology to help maintain security for children, and certainly needing a certain level of staffing, as the noble and learned Baroness said—and that, for many children, it is preferable to live in that type of accommodation as opposed to the alternative, which has been to be deprived of their liberty under the inherent jurisdiction of the courts. Actually, some of that type of accommodation may well be more suitable for things such as maintaining contact, having education and being closer to the community.
- The Minister's responses were genuinely positive in places, but some concerns remain. On Amendments 119A and 119B — I accept that existing duties apply on paper, but the Minister knows as well as I do that they are not working in practice. These children are frequently not getting an education and often do not meet CAMHS thresholds. On Amendment 124, I am uncomfortable that the safeguards equivalent to those for children in secure accommodation will be set out in regulations rather than on the face of the Bill — regulations can be reversed. Similarly on Amendment 132, existing independent reviewing officer powers should be explicitly extended and strengthened for these children, not left implicit. These children need proper scrutiny, proper therapy, and the right accommodation.
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this important debate. I echo the noble Lord, Lord Storey: the House of Lords was at its best with the expertise that was shared generously by your Lordships. I also thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. I believe she addressed —or is going to come back on—the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, regarding the use of handcuffs, as well as the specific gaps in relation to children who are not looked after, which was raised by my noble friend Lady Berridge. I think she also gave a very positive response to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in relation to his amendments. So it is so far, so good. In relation to my amendments, there were some genuinely positive and helpful responses. In relation to Amendments 119A and 119B, there was a category of response. I understand—the Minister is obviously telling the truth—that these duties already exist, whether it be in relation to children receiving education or therapeutic support, or, indeed, that they are in registered accommodation; but the Minister knows as well as I do that that is not working in real life. It may be that the problem is a difficult one to solve, but it still needs to be solved. These children are not typically getting an education; although I would agree with her that, if they are nearer their community, they have a better chance of doing so. We know that these children have frequently been in unregistered accommodation and that, as I said in my remarks, they often do not meet the criteria for CAMHS to provide therapeutic support. I also felt something distinctly promising about her tone in relation to my Amendment 134C, so I live in hope. There are two amendments that I want to touch on briefly. In the case of Amendment 124, I believe the Minister said that she agreed on the need for clear safeguards, and that the same powers would be available to the Secretary of State as exist today for children in secure accommoda…