| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Simon Thomas: Does the hon. Lady recall the briefing that she organised in this House at which Voices from Care suggested that the obligation should continue until the age of 30 because of the need to sort out young people's priorities before starting education? The Minister may blanch at that figure, but a statutory duty until the age of 24 would be a reasonable compromise.
Ms Morgan: I accept that. At the briefing, young people were asking for the age to be set much higher than it is in the Bill. We should make the duty continue until the care leaver reaches the age of 24 as a small step towards meeting those wishes.
It is clear that care leavers are not moving through the education system in step with their contemporaries. I am sure that we all accept that that is not a matter of ability but a result of the system that they have been in. We must go out of our way to enable them to develop their skills later than young people who have not been through the care system.
There are clear reasons why we should ensure that local authorities have a duty to support care leavers up to and including the age of 24. That is important, as experience shows that local authorities do not have a good track record in this field. For 50 years, local authorities have had discretionary powers to give aftercare and support for care leavers' education, as provided for in the Children Acts 1948 and 1989. They have not used that power, so I have doubts about discretionary powers in this field. One local authority in Wales, for example, currently has 200 care leavers, but has no budget to finance education and training for them.
Care leavers and representatives from Voices from Care say that they have not even been told by local authorities that they may be able to receive assistance to pursue their education. They had no idea that they could receive discretionary assistance--that seems to be a common problem among local authorities in Wales. It is therefore not surprising that so few young people leaving care go on to higher education. That is a disgraceful situation which must change, and the Bill gives us an opportunity to change it.
Not getting any training and education has severe consequences for young people, but there is clear evidence that we can do something about that. In research done in Wales, Professor Sonia Jackson studied care leavers with good academic qualifications and found that those who had qualifications ranging from a minimum of 5 GCSEs to degrees all ended up with secure careers and housing. The education system offered them opportunities to achieve and take part in the mainstream of society. However, only one member of the control group of
approximately 100 care leavers without any educational qualifications had secure work and housing. That is a gloomy statistic. Education and assistance with education seem to be the key to helping those young people move ahead. We should help people not only in the short term but in the long term.I said earlier that young people in Wales were sending a strong message that they did not wish benefits to be transferred to local authorities. They assure me that their consultations show that that feeling is shared by all young people in Wales. I accept the intention behind the proposal to transfer benefits from the Department of Social Security to local authorities. However, young people have told me forcefully that they feel that they are being treated differently from other young people who are not able to live at home. I accept that it can be argued that we are trying to make local authority provision more like a real home for care leavers, but I want to put it on the record that young people fear that a transfer may result in their losing out on additional benefits from the DSS, even though, as has been said, such benefits are a maze and difficult to get.
Many young people in care do not have a good relationship with the local authority and feel that they have often been let down by social workers. Lots of them do not have social workers who have worked with them for a long time. I am not attacking social workers, as that is not their fault, but perhaps the system is not properly resourced. Young people are sceptical of the local authority and are anxious about the transfer of benefits from the DSS to local government. Is it possible to have further consultation with young people on the issue, as we need to reassure them that they will not lose out and that there will be a better and easier system?
The National Assembly for Wales will be responsible for the distribution of benefits to local authorities in Wales. The Bill specifies that money going to the local authorities will be ring-fenced, and we want that for Wales, although how it is done will be up to the National Assembly. If the money is not ring-fenced, I would have a grave fear that some of it would be lost in local authority budgets.
Finally, I want to take the opportunity to publicise the need for all further and higher education colleges and institutions to recognise positively the particular needs of care leavers. Ground-breaking work done in this field by Howard Firth at Hampshire county council in partnership with local universities and colleges has led to passports to education, which are positive routes for care leavers to help them into further and higher education. That involves work before the young person goes to college, exploratory visits, support and other assistance which helps to make higher education more accessible. It is leading to real results and achievements, which can be an inspiration to others.
All the research evidence shows that care leavers are under-represented in further and higher education. Their parents have in effect been local authorities, and more must be done by colleges and universities to ensure that an appropriate number of young people from care enter further and higher education.
In summary, I am aware that some of my proposals would add to the resources needed for the Bill. However, it is important to recognise that if we provide the money now, we shall not have to provide it later. Whatever we
do, we must change the situation whereby young people end up in an expensive prison system or homeless on the streets, which involves a great cost to the individuals concerned.7.19 pm
Mr. David Amess (Southend, West): For the first time in this Parliament, I truly welcome a Government Bill, although I hope that I do not come to regret that. I am not going soft, but I feel that I should give credit where it is due. I congratulate the Government on a Bill which, in every sense, is a measure of common sense. As with all such debates, it seems that there is little to say because all hon. Members have said that they agree with the measure. The few points that we want to make will be best made in Committee. Having said that, I should still like to put on record a few thoughts.
The Action on Aftercare Consortium comprises of Barnardos, Centrepoint, Childline, the National Children's Bureau, Action for Children, the National Foster Care Association, First Key, Save the Children, the Children's Society and Voice for the Child in Care, all of which support the Bill. Many of us have great contact with them in our constituencies. Perhaps the Government needed no encouragement because they have acted on the Utting report, but those organisations must take some of the credit, and I pay tribute to them.
The statistics for children in care are absolutely horrendous. The circumstances under which many children go into care are too awful to describe. Many hon. Members have come from a loving, caring, family environment, and it is difficult to imagine the awful circumstances of some children, who eventually drift into crime and take drugs. They may become pregnant when they do not wish to do so, and they then have children, and one cycle follows another. I welcome the fact that the Bill will address some of those problems.
We heard from the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Health, of which I am a member. I was not serving on the Committee when the report to which he referred was produced, but I pay tribute to it for that report, especially three of its proposals. It said:
- It is clear that in many cases undue pressure is put on young people to leave care as soon as they are 16, irrespective of how well or badly prepared they may be for independent living so early in their lives.
The Committee's second proposal states:
- The social services must not turn their backs on young people when they have left care . . . We support the proposal by Sir William Utting and others that the Children Act 1989 should be amended to convert the discretionary powers contained in section 24 into duties imposed on local authorities to offer appropriate support to care leavers in the form of services, in-kind assistance and cash. We recommend that this duty should extend to young people up to and including the age of 21, and should exist as a discretionary power up to and including the age of 25, or beyond in exceptional circumstances. The Government should ensure that the resources necessary to achieve this end are provided.
The final point--I do not think that the Minister mentioned it in opening the debate--is that the Select Committee said:
- We recommend that the Government should take the necessary steps to improve the quality of statistical information available on service provision for and outcomes of care leavers.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |