Mr.
Kidney: My right hon. Friend has made three excellent
announcements. I am grateful to her for all of them. They are very
welcome. I am sure that with an annual review of these services,
consultation with young people and their families and carers and the
stock-take that she has described, we will see an overall improvement
in the performance of local authorities in commissioning good-quality
advocacy services from, among others, the kind of organisations that we
have been talking about for the past two weeks, such as NCH and A
National Voice, which are great organisations for providing these
services. With the initiatives that my right hon. Friend has just
announced, I am sure that new clause 31 is not necessary. I beg to ask
leave to withdraw the
motion. Motion
and clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
New
Clause
36Care
of young persons up to age
21 ‘After section 22G of the
1989 Act (which is inserted by section 10)
insert— “22H
General duty of local authority in respect of former relevant
children (1) It is the duty of
a local authority to provide accommodation for persons who
are— (a) “former
relevant children” within the meaning of section 23C(1) and who
have not attained the aged of 22,
and (b) “relevant
children” within the meaning of section
23A(2). (2) Section 22G shall
apply in relation to the persons mentioned in subsection (1) as it
applies in relation to the children mentioned in subsection (3) of that
section.”’.—[Helen
Southworth.] Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Helen
Southworth: I beg to move, That the clause be read a
Second
time. I
am conscious that I bring with me the admirable support of not only my
hon. Friends the Members for Stafford and for Stourbridge, but the 198
Members who signed early-day motion 1413, “Support for young
people in care in transition to adult life”, which I tabled. It
notes that many young people in care are moved into independent living
at 16 or 17, when the average age at which young people in the United
Kingdom leave home is 24. In practice that means that many vulnerable
young people do not receive sufficient support to enable them to make
the transition into adult life successfully. It calls on the Government
to take steps to ensure that all these vulnerable young people have
access to effective support including, where appropriate, the
opportunity to remain with their foster carers until they are
21. The
reason why so many hon. Members believe it is essential that the
opportunity of this Bill is seized to ensure that there is effective
support for young people who are making steps into independent living
from care is that the Bill is intended to enable those who enter the
care system to achieve the aspirations parents have for their own
children, and to reduce the gap in outcomes between children in care
and their
peers. The
Bill sets out many excellent measures to revolutionise care for
children who are looked after by local authorities, but there remains a
huge gap between the aspirations within the Bill and the practice for
young people who, from the age of 16, are moving into independent
living. There is a particular issue for young people who at the age of
16 or 17 move from foster care or from a local authority or private
children’s home into other accommodation. The current practice
in operation in many, if not most, parts of the country is that when
young people leave the care of the local authority and leave the
protection of the “parent”, they are left alone to
resolve their problems themselves because they have moved
accommodation.
Although the
Ministers have made it clear in the Bill that they have admirable
aspirations to ensure that local authorities provide accommodation for
young people in their care, the practical fact remains that many young
people of 16 or 17 are at best encouraged, and in some cases left with
no alternative other than, to leave care and move into the supported
services available through local authority housing services, rather
than through children’s
services. I
draw the Committee’s attention to the children’s rights
director’s report of February 2006, “Young
People’s Views on Leaving Care”, in which Dr. Roger
Morgan made it clear that the consultation that he undertook
demonstrated that this is an issue of serious concern to young people.
In his top 10 list of things that most worry young people about leaving
care, drawn up by consulting young people, among the problems such as
loneliness and not being able to cope that hon. Members have already
mentioned is the serious problem
of: “Leaving
before being ready to do so—‘Should have a say in when to
leave
care’”. Other
concerns
are: “Having
nowhere/no-one to come back to”; “Being put in some
‘dodgy’ places... Becoming
homeless”, and “‘Not
being able to settle anywhere’—having to keep moving
around”. The
report demonstrated that young people are leaving care at significantly
younger ages, typically around 16 or 17 years old. For them, the
reality of leaving care is “harsh and uncertain”. The
report
said: “A
common theme amongst those young people consulted was in their having
remarkably short periods of notice to leave, together with their sheer
lack of preparation to do
so”. It
went
on: “One
young woman told us she had received no notice of having to leave care,
had no plans drawn up prior to leaving and did not have any form of
written
plan.” It
is a sad fact that that young woman is not the only one. Hon. Members
in the Committee and outside have received considerable evidence from
young people leaving care that they have not had proper support and
that they have been put into dodgy places. In some cases, they have
been put in hostels where the majority of other residents are people
who are leaving prison or have convictions for drug offences or
prostitution. These vulnerable young people are being left to cope
alone in that sort of
accommodation. I
accept that provisions are made in clause 9 for other placements, but
there is no way of measuring by inspection the suitability of those
other places. It should not be beyond the wit of this House to produce
a reasonable checklist that says what is suitable accommodation and
what is dodgy. If 16-year-olds can work it out for themselves, we ought
to be able to work it out on their behalf. We have a duty to do
so. The
aspirations stated in the new clause refer not only to relevant
children, but to young people who have previously been relevant up to
the age of 21. That is an important thing to write into the Bill. Much
legislation over the past few years has demonstrated the right of a
looked-after child to be protected up to the age of 18 if it is needed.
We have seen that 41 or 42 per cent. of
young people have left looked-after status to go into independent living
before the age of 18. In many cases, they have gone into wholly
unacceptable accommodation. It is unsurprising that they do not have
the opportunities that any parent would want for their child in such
circumstances. Many
hon. Members want to see the aspiration of the opportunity for a young
person to make a proper transition into independent living written into
the Bill. We would then not have to look at opportunities that might
emerge from future pilots. We already know that, for many young people,
the opportunities to carry on in further education, higher education,
training or work all depend on having a safe place to live and somebody
they can turn to and talk things through with.
Finally and
briefly, I would ask that we please focus on this problem, because it
is something that many Members of this House expect us to address,
either in this Committee or elsewhere.
Kevin
Brennan: I thank my hon. Friend for her work and my other
hon. Friends who have campaigned very assiduously on this issue.
Unfortunately, her new clause is technically defective, because unless
an appropriate consequential amendment is made to make an exclusion
from the definition of a child who is looked after in section 22 of the
1989 Act, it would have the effect of making all relevant children
looked after. Notwithstanding that, I think that she wants me to talk a
little about these issues.
Helen
Southworth: On that point about technical drafting, I am
sure that the Minister will be very well aware that he has far greater
resources at his command than his hon. Friends have available to them.
Will he meet with us to discuss the detail of drafting, so that we can
have a better new
clause?
Kevin
Brennan: I am always pleased to meet my hon. Friend,
although I was going on to give the other reasons why we do not need
the new clause and, of course, there was no implied criticism of her at
all in relation to the point that I was making about the technical
drafting of the new clause.
Tim
Loughton: The Minister did not say that to
me.
Kevin
Brennan: In the case of the hon. Gentleman, although I
extend my sympathy to him for having been in the same job for the past
seven years, I had thought that, by now, he would have learned how to
draft an amendment or new clause in the correct manner.
Our three
priorities are: making sure that children do not have to leave care
before they are ready to do so; making sure that all care leavers have
access to an appropriate range of accommodation options when they leave
care, and providing the right support for care leavers so that they can
make a successful transition to independent
living. The
Committee will be glad to hear that I will not go through all the
measures that we have discussed and are introducing, both in the
“Care Matters” implementation plan and in the Bill, in
relation to young people leaving care and accommodation. There are a
number of measures that should have a significant impact in reducing
the
numbers of relevant children who need accommodation. Clause 9 will
ensure that there is thorough scrutiny whenever a local authority plans
to move a child to move from a placement with foster parents or in a
children’s home to any other arrangement, which is likely to be
accommodation that is less supported, whether that is a hostel or
supported lodgings. As we have
already discussed in our consideration of the Bill, we would expect the
IRO to provide a robust challenge to such a proposed change to the
placement arrangement if there is any doubt about the young
person’s informed consent to the move, or any doubt that such a
move is not in their interest. We are committed to using existing
regulatory powers to introduce a new requirement for personal advisers
to visit young people where they are living, mirroring the new visiting
duty for looked-after children in clause 16, to reduce still further
the practical differences between the services that local authorities
must provide for looked-after children and relevant children, including
the financial incentives that local authorities may have had previously
to force children out of care before they are ready. We want to stop
there being any incentive at all for local authorities to do that, and
to ensure that they absolutely understand what their duties are.
Obviously that has been a large part of the discussions that we have
had in relation to the Bill and to the wider “Care
Matters” implementation plan.
As part of
our revision of the Children Act guidance, we will be issuing statutory
guidance to IROs in 2009. The focus of case reviews should be the
provision made by the local authority to meet the full range of the
child’s needs. For relevant children placed in unregulated
placements, such as supported lodgings, hostels, or, as is sometimes
the case, their own independent accommodation, it is essential that the
review examines whether or not their accommodation is suitable and
whether or not they are being provided with all the support that they
need.
4.15
pm If
that review process identifies problems, then the review meeting
provides the opportunity to find the appropriate solutions. That will
require that leaving care services establish real partnerships with
housing and youth homelessness services. Housing services and
children’s services must adopt a shared strategic approach to
the provision of housing and support pathways for young people. That
was the strong message in the guidance, “Joint working between
Housing and Children’s Services: Preventing homelessness”
published by my Department and the Department for Communities and Local
Government in May this
year. When
I visited South Gloucestershire a few months ago, I met a young person
in care and what one young lady said about what her brother had said
years before was interesting. She said that her brother had said that
being in care meant “homelessness”. Ultimately, that was
what it meant to him and his friends; we are determined to bring that
to an end. I and hon. Members have seen how that situation can be
transformed, and we need to ensure that that is happening more widely
around the country. We are committed to supporting young people in
their transition into adulthood. I know that my hon. Friend the Member
for Warrington, South will be holding us to account as we try to
strength the
guidelines. Her new cause is unnecessary and has technical
deficiencies, and I hope that she will agree to withdraw
it. Helen
Southworth: We have already commented on the technical
difficulties within the amendment. I hope that my hon. Friend will
agree to meet Members to look at the issues further. In light of the
indications that we have received from the Minister and of the time
that we have available to us over then next few months before Report, I
will review what he as said. However, first I shall remind him that in
the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s 2005 report, “Life after
care”, 36 per cent. of young people reported being homeless at
some time in the year after leaving care and that Rainer’s
“Home alone” report found that almost one in six of care
leavers were in unsuitable accommodation, with a number in unsafe
accommodation. We urgently need to demonstrate that the Bill as drafted
is capable of delivering what it needs to for young people up to the
age of 21 to ensure that they can make an effective transition into
independent living. On that basis I will withdraw the amendment, but
198 Members want to see the Bill working effectively. I beg to ask
leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion and
clause, by leave,
withdrawn. Question
proposed, That the Chairman do report the Bill, as amended, to the
House.
Kevin
Brennan: On a point of order, Mr.
Pope.
The
Chairman: Order. The motion that the Chairman do report
the Bill to the House is itself debatable.
Kevin
Brennan: I obviously learnt nothing in my two years in the
Government Whips Office. I am a rather defective Minister. I thank you,
Mr. Pope, and your colleague, Mr. Williams, for
chairing the Committee. I apologise that perhaps his presence meant
that some of us, including the hon. Member for Upminster, occasionally
lapsed into the language of heaven and I particularly apologise to the
Hansard writers for that. I hope that the Committee will agree
that we, including the hon. Member for Ceredigion, made a valiant
effort to pronounce the very difficult English constituency names of
colleagues correctly during the proceedings. I also thank the
officials, the Clerks, the Hansard writers, the
Doorkeepers and the police for their assistance during our
deliberations. We
have had an extremely useful Committee stage. The Bill has been
altered, if not through direct amendment, by indications that my right
hon. Friend and I have given either about strengthening regulation or
about amendments to other legislation about which hon. Members have
raised important points. The Committee has had a right and proper
scrutiny process, which has improved the Bill. I would like to thank
all Committee members, particularly my right hon. Friend the. Member
for Stretford and Urmston and my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester,
who, being in the Whips Office and not being allowed to speak, does not
get enough recognition. He has helped us to get through all the clauses
in time, as we have this afternoon.
I would also
like to thank Members of the Opposition parties and particularly their
spokespersons, both of whom I have debated with before. I thank the
hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole for her elegant
choice of clauses and amendments to support. The hon. Member for East
Worthing and Shoreham said that he did not come into politics to be
elegant. I wrote that down when he said it. You may have noticed at
that point, Mr. Pope, one or two titters on this side of the
Committee, because as the hon. Gentleman was saying that some of my
hon. Friends behind me were passing around a copy of a new magazine
called “Total Politics”. In that magazine there is an
article on political elegance, with a quote, which is
highlighted: “And
wear braces only if you want to look like a
twit.” Heaven
forefend that the hon. Gentleman should think that I am getting at him.
That is a quote from his hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton
(Alan Duncan). He made that contribution to an article entitled
“Dress to the Right, Sir?” I hope that the hon. Gentleman
will forgive me for pointing that out to the Committee, but it was he
who said that he did not want to be elegant. That is just as well,
considering his hon. Friend’s comments. With that, I would like
to conclude, and to thank you once again, Mr. Pope, for your
chairmanship.
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